The Salvation of the Hyuga Clan
by cross4m3
Summary: after the Kyuubi attack, Hiashi Hyuga and his brother Hizashi take in baby Naruto. They don't do it just out of the goodness of their hearts though. The young boy has a part to play in their plan. A plan made to save the hyuga clan from self annihilation.
1. the beginnings of a plan

Hiashi Hyuga was a man on a mission. He was going to the Hokage's office to request permission to raise the son of Minato Namikaze.

When he reached the outer door he knocked firmly.

"Enter," came a voice from the other side of the door.

"Hokage-sama, I would like to request that my clan be allowed to raise the boy Minato chose to contain the Kyuubi." the Hokage could hardly believe his ears.

"Hiashi this is most unusual, I would have thought that you would want to have the boy killed."

Hiashi chuckled, "I am not so heartless as to wish death on an innocent child, and I am not so blind as to presume that the fourth Hokage would sacrifice his life in order to simply reincarnate the Kyuubi No Kitsune as a human child. To believe such a thing would be a dishonor to all those who died that day, and an insult to the memory of the fourth himself as well."

The third Hokage looked at him with a stern expression on his weathered face.

"I must inform you that there have been several clan heads who have already spoken to me about this matter today. Most of them wanted the boy killed, but there were a few who had requests similar to your own. Now, tell me why I should grant your request when I refused the others?"

Mentally Hiashi smiled to himself, he had almost succeeded in his quest to adopt the boy. All he had to do now was pull out his trump cards.

"Because I know the identity of the boy's father, Minato Namikaze, more recently known as the fourth Hokage." The look of surprise on the old Hokage's face was priceless, but Hiashi continued as if he hadn't noticed. "And I do not seek this boy merely to train him as a weapon or to use as a way to raise the status of my clan in this village. We are already one of the most powerful clans in the village, and I don't think we need any more power, the elders of my clan are troublesome enough with the power that we already have, to give them any more would just be asking for trouble. I only wish to honor the memory of the fourth Hokage by giving his child a family. And I have a feeling that this boy will someday unite the branch family and the main family somehow..."

At that exact moment Hiashi's trump card walked in, his twin brother Hizashi.

"That is why Hiashi and I want to raise Naruto Namikaze." Hizashi said, finishing his brother's sentence as he entered the room unannounced.

"For too long the branch and main families of the Hyuga clan have been at each others throats. Within one or two more generations there will be enough unrest to split the clan in two, and I doubt that it will be a peaceful split. Most likely a small civil war will erupt, resulting in the destruction of the Hyuga clan. There is also a very high possibility that most if not all of Konoha itself will be dragged into the fight. Which is why Hiashi and I want to at least attempt to stop this feud now before it even begins."

The Hokage could see where they were heading with their explanation.

"You two are going to put Naruto into the branch family aren't you? And then you are going to have him marry into the main house through Hiashi's unborn daughter. Am I right?"

Hiashi knew there was a reason why he respected the Hokage so much, he was a genius when it came to figuring out his opponent's train of thought. But this time he was wrong.

"not exactly, Hokage-sama....you see we had thought of that but we ran into a problem. because of the arrogance of the main family, members of the main house and the branch house never intermarry. We came up with a solution to this problem however. We will put him into neither one. In other words neither I nor my brother will actually adopt Naruto. We will simply raise him as Hizashi's godson, and hope for the best. But you must make no mistake, Naruto must eventually be told of his true parentage for this to work, otherwise our plan will most likely fail. Once he is old enough Naruto will no doubt realize that my daughter is a fine choice for a wife, and will seek to win her heart. At least that is our hope. If that happens the elders will not be able to stop the reuniting of the two families this time. but if he believes her to be related to him, that will never happen. So to avoid that happening we will be sure to raise him as the son of a close friend of the family instead."

Hiruzen Sarutobi, third Hokage of Konohagakure, listened to their plan with admiration. The two brothers had thought of everything. And with the protection of the Hyuga clan there would be very little need to hide the true identity of the child in question. He would eventually know exactly who he was and where he came from. He could see no way around it, the best place for Naruto would seem to be with the Hyuga brothers, and if their plan worked it would prevent further bloodshed and allow one of Konoha's greatest clans to become truly united. Only one question remained.

"How will you keep him from receiving the caged bird seal? The elders may see fit to try to force it on him even if he isn't an official Hyuga, and lacks the Byakugan."

"My apologies Hokage-sama, in my haste I forgot to explain exactly how we will achieve this feat. I will allow Hizashi to explain, as it was his idea."

"Thank-you brother, Hokage-sama, as you know every member of the branch house receives a curse seal to prevent the Byakugan from falling into enemy hands if they are killed in action. It is a seal that Hiashi and I do not believe that it is necessary any longer, it was instated before our clan came to Konoha and now that we are several generations into our settlement here, we believe that the time has come to stop using the seal since we now have the security of a ninja village to aid us in our struggle to survive as a clan. The only reason that Hiashi, as the head of our clan, has not stopped the use of this seal is because the elders will not allow him to do so. Presently the seal is being used by the council of elders to separate our clan into upper and lower classes, and they do not wish this to change, even though it will end up destroying our clan in the long run. Because the elders have so much power we cannot fully prevent the curse seal from being used on Naruto, but you can. If you order our clan to raise Naruto but place him under your own protection as the Hokage then the elders will have no say in how he is raised. Your protection will prevent them from placing the seal on him since that protection means that any procedures must be approved by you. And if you do this Hiashi will be free and clear of any negative repercussions that could result from not placing the seal on this child, because he will pretend to disagree with your decision. To ensure that we are able to convince the elders of the sincerity of our little farce Hiashi will order me to raise him rather than soil the good name of the main house and I will argue against it, we will create a compromise and raise him in both houses. At least that is how the elders will see it. By raising him in both houses we will hopefully be able to unite the two families."

The third Hokage was impressed, they really had thought of nearly every detail. Only the future remained in doubt, but the Hokage was sure that this was the right decision.

"Alright,i will allow you two to raise Naruto as you see fit. I will inform the council of my decision in two days, let's hope that we can make it a convincing argument for their benefit."

"Thank-you Hokage-sama"

both twins bowed and then turned to leave the room to go prepare for their new responsibilities.

Hiruzen Sarutobi leaned back in his chair and began to plan out how he was going to 'force' Hiashi Hyuga to raise Naruto Namikaze.

_This is going to be a very interesting council meeting.

* * *

_

**Two days later**

_**-the village council meeting**_

Hiruzen looked out over the assembled clan heads.

"I'm sure that you all know why I have called you all here today."

He paused, choosing his next words carefully.

"I have decided to place Naruto Namikaze under my protection, and will chose a clan that I feel is best suited to raise him to his fullest potential."

Every clan head was suddenly paying attention, even Shikaku Nara looked up from where he was pretending to take a nap, each one was certain that their clan had been chosen over all the others, as the one best suited to this task. They were to be sorely disappointed.

"I have decided that the Hyuga clan is best suited to raise the boy,"

there was a general outcry from everyone present, obviously they did not agree with this decision. the Hyuga may have been one of the most powerful clans, but the were not the most popular. many people disliked them because of their superior attitudes, their arrogance made them the second most hated clan, just ahead of the uchiha in popularity. the Hokage waited for the outcry to die down before continuing.

" I have chosen them because their unique position as the wielders of the Byakugan will be instrumental in allowing us to know if the seal holding the Kyuubi should ever weaken, such a warning would allow us to take preventative measures to ensure that a repeat of the Kyuubi's attack does not happen. They are also the best suited to protect him from those who would harm him or take advantage of him."

Of course it could be said that the plan laid out two days earlier by Hiashi and Hizashi was taking advantage of him as well, but it allowed him to choose whether or not to go along with it. Unlike Fugaku Uuchiha's plan.

_Flashback_

"_Hokage-sama there is something I wish to discuss with you"_

"G_o ahead Fugaku, __I am listening__."_

"I_ believe that t__he Kyuubi container must be destroyed!"_

_"Fugaku you know I can't do that. You of all people should know that killing the boy will only release the Kyuubi once more. The seal has not had enough time to adhere to the boy's chakra sufficiently. Besides killing an innocent child is an action that I could never condone."_

_"Then allow me to raise it as a weapon to use against our enemies!"_

_"Fugaku you are starting to sound like Danzo. I guess I'll just have to give you the same answer I gave him. that would be a very firm 'No', or rather 'Hell No' if you want to know how I truly feel about it."_

_As Hiruz_en came back to the present, he saw that Hiashi was about to speak.

_He had better make this convincing. _He thought. But knowing Hiashi, by the end of his little argument the council would be begging him to take the boy.

"Hokage-sama, I understand your reasoning behind choosing my clan to raise the boy, however I must protest. taking in this boy would place my entire clan in great danger, not only from the kyuubi no kitsune but from the enemies of the boy's father. minato namikaze, better known as Konoha's yellow flash had many enemies, not only within this village but also in the other villages as well. if any other village were to find out that my clan had taken in the man's son they would not hesitate to attempt to kill the boy to take revenge on his father, such an attempt would no doubt kill many members of my clan."

the hokage knew what hiashi wanted him to say next.

"Hiashi, there is a very good reason why i chose your clan. The unique structure that your ancestors created will afford greater protection to the boy. Having two families within the clan will serve to confuse the enemies who would seek to kill the boy and allow both families to say that the other family is the one in possession of the boy. And as i said earlier, your Byakugan gives your clan an early warning syster should the seal ever be in danger of breaking. I know that i would sleep better at night knowing that there was a way for us to find out beforehand should another attack be about to take place."

The clan leaders were beginning to see the logic in placing the boy with the Hyuga clan. they certainly no longer wanted to have such a dangerous child in their own clans, after this meeting they were almost glad to let the Hyugas have him. Hiashi pretended to acquiesce to the hokage's point. He lowered his head submissively.

"Alright Hokage-sama, I will raise the boy. But i must be sure to point out that I take on this responsibility with extreme reluctance. That being said, I will not allow any one in my clan to adopt him, instead I will have my twin see to his well being. But there is one problem with your plan, however. You realize that taking in the boy will make my entire clan a target for those who would like revenge against the fourth Hokage. But there is a way to prevent such an occurrence from happening. In that regard, I must respectfully request that the identity of the boy and what he contains within him be made an S-class secret, with all the protections that such a declaration implies. If you grant my request then we must chose a new clan name for him. Because nobody in their right mind would believe that he is a Hyuga, I would recommend using his mother's name instead. Uzumaki."

The Hokage knew that they had won. It was time to end this charade on a positive note and hope for the best.

"The head of the Hyuga clan is correct in his analysis of the situation, as such I am inclined to grant his request." he said, looking at each of them in turn.

"Naruto Namikaze and all information relating to the true fate of the kyuubi no kitsune is now an S- class secret. Hence forth this boy shall no longer be known by the name of Naruto Namikaze, he is now Naruto Uzumaki, until such time as he wishes to reclaim his true name. This meeting is adjourned. Hiashi, you may pick up Naruto at your earliest convenience, he is with my son Asuma."

Hiashi was overjoyed, not that he showed it. The plan was working and nobody had any idea, other than his brother and the Hokage. Now all he had to do was fool the council of elders into accepting this turn of events. A task easier said than done.


	2. the first stages

**A/N: i realized after i posted the last chapter that not everyone who reads this would know what a trump card is. a trump card is a card that will beat any other card that isn't also a trump card, the term is used in several card games, but the one i was thinking of is called euchre, in euchre the only thing that can beat a trump card is a higher trump card. It is a fun yet confusing game, i think Shikamaru would like it. and yes i do know that Hiashi and Hizashi are acting out of character, there is a reason. mainly because if they were acting in character then they would never have taken in naruto in the first place. i should warn you that Naruto, Hinata, and Neji will be out of character as well, due to being raised differently than in canon. i will attempt to write the rest of the cast "in character," but please give me some leeway on this. **

Hizashi watched as a one year old Neji Hyuga investigated the little intruder known as Naruto Uzumaki, he couldn't help but find it funny when Neji looked at him as if to say "Ok, he can stay," as if the toddler had any choice in the matter. It reminded him of earlier that day when an irate council of elders was informed about the newest resident of the Hyuga compound.

_Flashback _

_ They had blustered and fussed like the spoiled and rich main branch members that they were. But they knew that in the end they would have no choice but to accept the Hokage's decision in this matter. All of that had happened while he had been listening from the hallway, waiting for his part in the drama that was being played out for the benefit of the elders. Hiashi called him in and handed him the sleeping Naruto before beginning the charade._

"_I could not prevent the Hokage from forcing us to raise this child, but he never said that we had to put him in the main family. Because of this oversight on his part I am going to place the boy under Hizashi's care. However, there is a slight complication. Because of the nature of the boy and his unique position as the jailer of the Kyuubi No Kitsune, the Hokage has seen fit to place his protection over the boy. However much I may dislike it, this means that we cannot place a curse seal on the boy."_

_Next came Hizashi's turn. "brother this means that the boy will not be a branch family member, there is no way that I can raise a main branch member to the satisfaction of the elders." _

_Hiashi pretended to be angered by the interruption. "Very well, if it concerns you that much then I will just have to oversee that part of the boy's upbringing myself. But he is still under your care Hizashi, no arguments."_

"U_nderstood Hiashi-sama"_

The council had bought the whole thing. Now it was just a matter of raising Naruto, but that wouldn't be too troublesome, sure a baby was a handful but it was nothing to worry about.

Oh how wrong he was.

**3 years later**

Neji ran ahead of them as Hizashi slowly walked a 3 year old naruto across the Hyuga compound to where Hiashi was waiting with his wife, Hinali, and daughter, Hinata. They had been letting Naruto and Hinata play together ever since the two had learned how to crawl, in hopes of creating some sort of attachment between them. It had worked. Naruto was now always asking when they were going to see "Hina-hime"as he called her. Conversely she was always waiting for "Naru-chan" to come over.

Now the two were old enough to leave the compound and go to the park to play with the other children, with an escort of course. "Dad, hurry up!" Neji called from across the compound, he had reached the place where Hiashi was waiting. "I'm coming Neji." he called back. And with that he picked Naruto up off the ground and carried him the rest of the way over, his 'God Son' may have limitless energy but he still couldn't make it all the way across the compound...yet.

Judging from Hiashi's face and his presence at Hinali's side, something was bothering him.

"Hiashi-sama?" he questioned, careful to use the honorific within earshot of the compound and any elders who could possibly be nearby. "I heard that today you were taking the kids to the park. Since it's the first time they'll be off the compound I thought I should tag along." Hiashi answered carefully, the look on his face told Hizashi to wait until they reached the safety of the park before asking again.

When they reached the park Naruto immediately dragged Hinata off to investigate all of the new sights and sounds that there were in this strange new place. Neji followed close behind, not wanting to be left out. "look Hina-hime that tree is taller than Uncle! I'm gonna climb it."

"Naru-Chan! You're going to get hurt again!"

"Hina-hime you worry too much"

Just then Neji came up behind them.

"She's right Naru-san, that tree is too tall for you to climb safely, let's go find a smaller one."

Neji could always talk some sense into Naruto for some reason, one day Hinata was going to ask how he did it, but today wasn't that day.

"Hey there's a smaller one!" and with that Naruto was off, the other two close behind.

Meanwhile on a park bench a short distance away, Hinali was keeping an eye on the kids while the two brothers talked in hushed tones so that nobody would overhear, as if anybody could hear anything over Naruto's shouting anyways.

"Hiashi please tell me the real reason why we came here today."

"Alright Hizashi, I'll tell you. It is so that we could talk without being overheard by the elders, they have spies everywhere in the main house. And so that I could see the kids as they went to the park for the first time in their lives. But mostly so we could talk."

"It must be important then."

"You're right. And it has to do with Neji."

"What is it?" Hizashi was half curious and half scared for his son.

"Well, as you know the time for the caged bird seal is fast approaching and the elders are trying to pressure me into placing it on Neji. I've been trying to find a way around it, just as I tried to do when they wanted you sealed. I failed when I tried to help you but I may have found a way to help Neji."

"How?"

"There is an old clan law that I found when I was searching for a way around your sealing. It couldn't help you so I set it aside and continued my search. Recently when I was doing the same search to help Neji I found the law again. It says that the nephew of the clan head may be designated as the secondary heir of the clan, as long as the head has no sons. I know that it wasn't meant to be used to prevent a sealing but I believe it may work, because there is another clan law that states that no possible heir may be sealed until they have no claim on the position of clan leader. That is the law that allowed you to remain unsealed for so long."

Hizashi was beginning to see where Hiashi was going with this plan.

"You mean to designate Neji as the secondary heir don't you?"

"Well he is my nephew, and I have no sons, and as far as I know I won't be getting one before the sealing deadline set by the elders. Which means that they have ironically been done in by the clan laws that they love so dearly." Hizashi smiled at his older brother before pointing out the obvious.

"Your next elders' meeting is going to be hell on earth, you know that right?"

"It's worth it if it means that I can prevent a young boy from being sealed simply because his father was born one minute too late."

Just then they heard a cry from across the park, and Hinali took off running in the direction that the sound had come from. Naruto had fallen out of the tree that he was climbing in, which meant that it was time to go home, and come back another day.

* * *

**6 months later**

_**celebration of hidden leaf's victory over hidden cloud**_

_**Hinata's birthday**_

**_Neji's sealing deadline_ **

_**one hell of a bad night for a certain cloud ninja **_

Hizashi held Neji's hand so he wouldn't get lost in the crowd as the parade passed by them. He couldn't place it but that cloud ninja gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was once again glad that Hiashi had taken his advice and let the kids all have a "sleepover" for hinata's birthday. In reality it was to afford Naruto and Neji the extra protection of the main house, and to have another obstacle in case the cloud ninjas had any ideas about acquiring the byakugan through Hinata. Hizashi hoped that they were over reacting but their spy network had been picking up hints of an attempt for months, there wasn't enough evidence to take to the Hokage, but his thinking was better safe than sorry. It was also to prevent the elders council from sealing Neji during the night to prevent Hiashi's plan from coming to fruition, the old geezers could enter any branch family house at will but the main house was offlimits without an invitation. Hizashi smiled at the memory of the meeting where the elders found out about Hiashi's plan, they had held it as close to the sealing deadline as possible so as to not allow the elders any time to get around it.

_Flashback_

_The elders could barely believe the words coming out of their leader's mouth._

"S_o you mean to tell us that you wish to have a branch member as your heir?" the bravest of them asked._

"_No. I wish to name him as my secondary heir, in case Hinata is not able to take my place. And he is not a branch family member, he is my nephew. He will not be a branch family member until he is sealed. And I am well within my rights to chose him, my daughter may not be up to your exceedingly high standards, but Neji will be."_

"V_ery well Hiashi, you have managed to get around sealing ssomeone this time. But be aware that it won't work again, you can only have 3 designated heirs."_

"_Yes, I know elder, but to save even one child from being sealed is still a success. By the way you won't have to worry about the third heir, my wife is pregnant again."_

"C_ongradulations Hiashi-sama"_

As the parade ended and the crowd dispersed Hizashi saw the cloud ninja heading towards them, or more specifically to Hiashi. "Hyuga-sama, I would be greatly honored if you would allow me to dine with your clan tonite." Hiashi had known that this was coming, the cloud ninja had been dining with every clan, calling it a gesture of good will. Not wanting to be rude, and not having any concrete reason to refuse, Hiashi was of course forced to say yes to the cloud ninja.

The children were not old enough to attend state dinners yet, so Neji, Hinata, and Naruto ate in Hinata's room. After dinner, several card games, and a very hotly contested shogi match (between Neji and Naruto of course), the three children were told to go to sleep by their parents, it was 1 a.m. after all.

Three hours later, a silent figure crept over a blind spot on the wall and made his way to Hinata's room.

He saw two small forms asleep on the floor, knowing that grabbing one would wake the other, the shadow grabbbed both of them. He assumed that he could always use the spare as a hostage if he were caught. In his haste he failed to spot the third sleeping mat situated off to the side, as if a child had woken up and was wandering the halls.

Neji saw the figure going into Hinata's room with his just activated Byakugan. His father had told him to watch out for Hinata and Naruto and if he saw anything to come get either himself or Hiashi, whomever he found first. He ran into his father's guest room and shouted "the creepy man from the parade took naru-san and hina-san!" His father was awake in a flash and running in the direction Neji was pointing. Over his shoulder he shouted: "Go get uncle Hiashi!"

Neji repeated the process in Hiashi's room and then went back to Hinata's room to wait for them to return. There was no doubt in his five year old mind that his father and uncle would succeed in bringing back his cousin and his brother, his best friends.

Naruto woke up and saw that he was moving very fast away from his home. He started screaming and kicking, trying anything to get away. He succeeded in causing the man to drop him, and he proceeded to run back the way he came. "Naru-chan?" all of the commotion that he was making had woken Hinata, who Naruto had just realized was under the man's other arm. Of course to Naruto this was unacceptable. Someone had the audacity to take Hina-hime from him, _his _Hina-hime. He wasn't going to let that happen, nobody was going to take her away from him. "Hina-hime!" he screamed as he chased after them. "give me back my Hina-hime!" Of course a four year old is no match for a full grown ninja when it comes to speed, as Naruto was fast figuring out. When he stopped to catch his breath Naruto saw a rock lying on the ground, picking it up he threw it at the ninja, who promptly dodged it, and then ran into a tree. This gave Naruto time to catch up and drag Hinata out of the man's grasp. When he was sure that Hinata was safe, Naruto ran back over and began kicking the man for all he was worth.

"you never take my Hina-hime! Never ever ever ever! She's my friend and you can't have her!"

It was then that Hiashi and Hizashi finally caught up to them. All the noise that Naruto was making had led them straight to him. Hizashi grabbed Naruto before he could do any real damage to the man. That was a job for the interrogators.

"Hiashi I think he's a little attached to your daughter." Hizashi said with a chuckle as Naruto fell asleep again, tired out from all the excitement. Hiashi looked up from where he was tying up the would-be kidnapper. "That's good, he'll need to be if we want our plan to work." He looked down at the man who had tried to steal his daughter, how could one kid take down a jonin of the cloud village? Granted Naruto was a special case, but he hadn't even used the Kyuubi's power. Hiashi made a decision. "Hizashi, I believe it is time to begin their training." Hizashi looked at him intently, "how can he use our fighting style without the byakugan?"

"i have faith in him, I know he'll figure it out, and Hinata will help him. Until her byakugan activates next year she is as blind as he is."

Hizashi could see that his brother's mind was made up. Oh well, if the boy could take down a ninja then he could learn the gentle fist fighting style without the aid of byakugan eyes.

* * *

** A/N: i know that Naruto shouldn't be able to learn gentle fist without byakugan. But i have an answer for that. Just keep reading and you'll find out soon enough. and no Hizashi is not going to die, and i haven't decided whether hinata's mom Hinali will die. By the way i named her on the assumption that children are given names that sound similar to the names of one or both of their parents, an example being: shikaku and shikamaru, chouza and choji, and even minato and naruto are slightly similar, although canon has given us a different reason for naruto's name being what it is.**


	3. Byakuzen come forth

_Disclaimer: i neglected to say it in the previous chapters, but i don't own naruto, nor did i create any of the characters mentioned so far other than Hinali Hyuga. and Byakuzen was my idea as well but someone else probably thought of something similar at some point so i won't argue about it, unless they sue me. then i'll be angry, and they won't like me when i'm angry. (borrowed from incredible hulk movie, and modified to fit into the context)_

**7 months later**

_**Hyuga clan training hall**_

"Again!" Hiashi shouted.

And again Naruto and Hinata went through the forms of the gentle fist. They were improving greatly, thanks to Naruto's never quit attitude. Several times the boy had been found practicing long after the rest of the clan had gone to bed. Even Hiashi had to admit that the boy showed promise, if things kept progressing at this rate Naruto would become the first ever master of the gentle fist without the byakugan bloodline. Granted the moves weren't all the same, and he had to be careful not to harm the boy. But the potential was there. He couldn't help but assume that the style that Naruto ended up with would most likely not be recognizable as the gentle fist, more than likely he would create a new fighting style, one that would be passed down through the revived Namikaze clan for generations. Naruto hadn't been told of his true heritage yet but Hiashi was confident that his plan would end up happening once Naruto was old enough to know the truth.

"Hiashi-sama!" a branch member ran up, dragging Hiashi out of his reverie. "your wife is in labor!"

that was not good news, it was still two weeks early. "take the children to the hospital now and tell them that I am on my way."

"yes Hiashi-sama" the branch member went to obey, taking Hinata by the hand and leading her away.

This caused Naruto to run after them. Ever since the incident with the cloud ninja he refused to be separated from Hinata during the daytime and only reluctantly allowed his parents to take him home at night. Hiashi saw what was happening and intervened before Naruto went on another kicking spree.

"I meant both of them,"he said in an exasperated tone. "Yes Hiashi-sama, please forgive my mistake." And with that the branch member led both chidren away.

At the hospital the children were sent to a play room to wait for their parents. Hinata was scared, she didn't know what was happening to her mother. All she knew was that her mom had been getting a lot bigger recently and her father had told her that soon she would have a little brother or sister to play with. That sounded like fun but she was still worried, she decided to say something about it to Naruto, trusting that he would know what to do, he always did. "n-naru-chan? I'm worried about my mom."

Naruto looked up from the picture he was drawing and gave her a reassurring smile. "she'll be fine Hina-hime, don't worry. The doctors will keep her safe."

"he's right Hina-san. She'll be fine." Neji said as he walked in with his father.

"Naruto, Hinata I want you to listen to me very carefully," Hizashi said as he knelt down to their eye level, " Hinali-sama is going to be very weak over the next few days. So I need you to be on your best behavior until she is feeling better. Do you understand?" when they both nodded an affirmative Hizashi stood up. "now come with me to meet your new sister Hinata, yes Naruto can come too." he said before they could ask the percieved question.

Hinata was overjoyed, she had a new sister! Now everything was perfect.

**4 weeks later**

_**hyuga training hall**_

"naruto"

"yes uncle hizashi?"

"i want you to try something. It's a new training method I've been toying with, to help you compensate for your lack of byakugan while using the gentle fist style."

"i will try it"

"then close your eyes"

Hizashi walked over to him and placed a blindfold over his eyes.

"now, open them."

"but uncle, I don't understand. How is a blindfold going to allow me to be able to use the gentle fist better? It won't let me see anything at all, at least with my limited eyes I could see attacks coming at me."

"and that is why you have stopped progressing." Naruto gave him what would have been a questioning look if he wasn't wearing the blindfold. "you are relying too heavily on your eyesight and not enough on your other senses, in order to progress any further you must learn not to rely on your eyes."

"but then how do I see?"

"I leave that to you Naruto, you may ask whomever you must, use whatever you need, and take however long it requires. Just figure it out."

after Hizashi had left Naruto sat down to think about this new problem. It was impossible. Wasn't it?

Of course Naruto knew that it had to be possible, otherwise Hizashi wouldn't have told him to do it.

But, when after an hour he still had no ideas as to how to make it physically possible, he decided to do what any five year old would do, cheat. And that was the reason why Naruto found himself outside Hiashi's office just after lunch that day. He had been told that he could achieve the solution by any means necessary, so he went to the only Hyuga that could be said to be smarter than Hizashi, his twin brother Hiashi.

Naruto knocked lightly before opening the door a few inches.

"Uncle Hiashi? Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course Naruto, what is it?"

"Well, Uncle Hizashi told me to figure out a way to fight an opponent with a blindfold on, so that I can compensate for my lack of byakugan. And I was wondering if you knew of any way that it could be possible."

"Hmm... that is a good question Naruto. I don't believe it is physically possible to do such a thing, but with ninjutsu it just might be possible. I do not personally know of a jutsu that will accomplish your task. But fortunately the Hyuga clan archives are currently playing host to the namikaze clan's archives. Housed within is a library of jutsus that could even rival that of the Uchiha clan. I think this is as good a time as any for someone to look through them. I'm sure that the fourth Hokage wouldn't mind a young prodigy such as yourself putting them to good use. But you can't tell anyone that we have the Namikaze archives, many clans would kill to get their hands on some of the jutsus that made the Fourth so powerful. If there is a jutsu that will do what you require then it will be there, if not then you will have to create one. There are instructions on how to do that in the archives as well. But if you have to create your own, come to myself or Uncle Hizashi before you attempt it, so that we can make sure that you don't hurt yourself."

Naruto bowed.

"Thank-you uncle Hiashi for placing this trust in me. I just have one more question."

"Oh? What would that be?"

"Where are the archives?"

"Have Hinata or Neji show you where they are, in fact why don't you ask them for some help? I'm sure that three searchers are better than one. And perhaps you will find something to help them as well."

after naruto left, hiashi got out a piece of paper. on it he wrote one sentence: '_The archives have been opened.' _He then put it in an envelope and put a priority seal on it, only the hokage would be able to open the envelope now. if anyone else attempted it the seal would explode, killing the interloper and destroying the document.

hiashi smiled to himself. the hokage would find this piece of information very interesting indeed. their plan was right on track, and the Namikaze clan was about to be reborn in a five year old boy.

30 minutes later

_**outside the archives**_

"You're sure that this is it Hina-hime? It doesn't look like much."

Hinata giggled.

"That's the whole point Naru-chan. This is a secret archive. I don't even think that some of the elders know what is in here."

They were standing in front of a dilapidated old building at the back of the Hyuga compound, waiting for Neji to show up. When Naruto had found him he was in the middle of a workout and had to finish, he had promised to meet them outside the archives in an hour. That was 50 minutes ago. Naruto was beginning to wonder if Neji had gotten stopped by someone on his way there, but it wasn't as if he wasn't allowed in the archives or anything. And even if he wasn't, Hinata was there to provide them access, nobody could say no to the heir of the clan. Naruto now saw the reason why Hiashi had him bring her, other than to help him look, if anyone gave them any trouble all Hinata had to do was order them to do something else and they would have to obey.

Just then Neji came running up to them.

"Sorry I took so long, I went to look for some flashlights, in case one of the lights is out or something."

Naruto could see the logic behind Neji's idea so he let it slide.

"As long as you're here now... alright let's go inside before someone decides to ask us what we're doing out here."

When they got inside all three were speechless at the sight before them. Inside the building there was what seemed to be an endless warehouse of information. Row upon row of shelves full of scrolls, books,and parchments stood in front of them. Beckoning the three knowledge seekers to come forth and explore. And explore they did. Naruto headed straight for the Namikaze collection, while Hinata and Neji browsed the Hyuga collection. All of them were looking for one thing, a way for Naruto to see without using his eyes. After several hours of searching, all three had come up empty handed, it appeared that the jutsu they were looking for had not been created...yet. After conferring with the others, Naruto decided to change his search, instead of looking for a jutsu to do exactly what he required, they would instead be looking for any jutsu that looked like it could possibly be combined with another to get the desired effect. This search was more productive. In a scroll on basic jutsus Naruto found instructions on how to make chakra strings, not exactly useful but he felt as if he might find some use for it in the future so he copied it down. He then found a recently made scroll on something called the hiraishin. He had no idea what it was but it mentioned using specially modified kunais to perform the technique correctly. He left the scroll where he found it, it seemed too advanced for him, but an idea was beginning to form in the back of his mind, it would need some fine tuning but it showed promise.

In the Hyuga section Hinata found a scroll on chakra sensing techniques and sensory enhancement jutsus, she felt it was worth looking at so she brought it along as she continued her search. Her next discovery was an old parchment that dealt with certain advanced chakra control exercises that were not common knowledge outside of the clan. Knowing that any attempt by Naruto would require such precise control, she copied it onto a scroll, since the parchment looked like it wouldn't survive Naruto's less than gentle handling.

Elsewhere, Neji was perusing the section containing the clan's collected taijutsu styles. He found a very old scroll that held information on a form of taijutsu that was used by the Hyuga clan before the full development of the gentle fist style. It would still require an extensive amount of work for Naruto to use the style without the benefit of byakugan, but Neji felt that it would serve him much better than the true gentle fist form.

When they met up again at the entrance to the archives, Naruto was pleased to discover that the other two had found something that would help him. The three left the archives just before sundown with their borrowed items. Naruto had a lot of reading to do, of course with Hinata and Neji's help it wouldn't take long at all.

Two weeks later Naruto had the idea for his new training system firmly in place. He was going to create a circle of kunai and attach chakra strings to them, he would wear the blindfold while he was sitting in the middle of the circle with an active sensory enhancement jutsu for his hearing, he was attempting to use the vibrations of the strings combined with what he was hearing to try and sense what was going on around him. Add to that the chakra sensing techniques that Hinata had discovered, and he almost had a workable jutsu that could be used to help him gain an almost byakugan-like view of the world around him. Of course the circle of kunai would not be a factor in the final jutsu. Naruto was planning to phase them out in favor of senbon, and then continue the phasing out process until he could sense the vibrations without a weapon in the ground to conduct vibrations. Eventually he hoped to be able to just attach a chakra string to the ground or maybe even use his feet instead of relying on the chakra strings.

But at the moment he was nowhere near that point, he was sitting in the circle trying to combine the use of the three techniques by using the chakra signatures of various people going about their daily business to practice identifying targets and figuring out how to predict people's movements. It was slow going but he was making headway in his attempts, he had already identifiied and memorized the chakra signatures of 23 other people, the first of which was of course Hinata since she was always nearby practicing her chakra control. Once she got the hang of it she was going to attempt to teach the exercises to Naruto and Neji. Likewise, Neji was practicing the taijutsu form he had discovered and would teach Naruto once he felt he had the basics down. All of this was done without the official knowledge of their parents (or guardians in naruto's case), however they had unofficially been getting help from both Hiashi and Hizashi whenever they needed it. And they were rapidly improving.

* * *

By the time Naruto was seven years old he had mastered the techniques that the three had found in the archives. He finally was able to see without his eyes, Although Neji had trained him in the lost taijutsu form recovered from the archives, Naruto had yet to adequately perform it without the use of his eyes.

He had taken to wearing a strip of cloth tied around his forehead, he would use this as a blindfold whenever he felt like practicing his 'byakuzen' skills (he had named it that because it was meant to make up for his lack of byakugan). It was during this time that Naruto and Hinata began taking walks around the village, partly so that Naruto could practice using byakuzen in unfamiliar situations, but also because they had nothing better to do until Neji got out of the academy for the day. This morning they were watching as one of the lower academy classes ran through an obstacle course, at one point in the course there was a rope that the students were supposed to use to swing over a shallow ditch. While watching the students attempt this feat, Naruto began to get an idea, what if he could do that? Only instead of an actual rope he could use the chakra strings that he had used to develop the byakuzen, possibly creating a rope out of chakra if he needed too. It certainly would give him an edge over his opponents in a fight.

He turned to Hinata.

"Hina-hime, what kind of control do you think it would tale to make a rope out of chakra?"

"I don't know Naru-chan, probably more than you have right now."

"Can you help me with that? I want to see if I can do it."

"Why not. There isn't really much else for us to do at the moment other than get into trouble. Let's go to the park to practice. "

"Can we go to ichiraku's first? I'm getting hungry"

"Fine."

At the park Hinata had Naruto put on his blindfold and activate his byakuzen, after going through his normal routine of counting the birds in the surrounding area, an idea stolen from Neji's byakugan training, she told him to try to throw a chakra string at a nearby tree, just to see what they had to work with in terms of skill and range. After several tries he managed to hit the indicated tree but the string snapped as soon as it was tightened. Hinata sighed when she saw this, they had a long way to go and only a year before the academy took over their lives. Just then Naruto spun around and threw a chakra string into the bushes, when he pulled it back a boy came with it.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" she asked, sounding much more confident than she really was.

"My name is Shikamaru, and I _was_ trying to take a nap." the boy, now identified as Shikamaru, said in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Sorry, Shikamaru," Naruto said sheepishly, "i was trying to train myself to use chakra strings and my byakuzen caught you moving, I can't really distinguish between humans and animals yet. I thought you were a squirrel or something, and I wanted to see if I could hit a moving target."

Shikamaru looked intrigued, "what is byakuzen? I've never heard of it."

"Well it's basically fake byakugan." Naruto explained, "i combined some really cool chakra sensing techniques with training my body to sense vibrations in the ground and training my ears to increase my hearing acuity. It's taken me two and a half years, but i've finally gotten 3 of my 5 senses acute enough to compensate for my lack of byakugan. Now I just have to improve it so that I can tell friend from foe..."

"And so you can distinguish whether Shikamaru is a squirrel or not." Hinata interjected, giggling as she said it.

"Well that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through when you can already see like a normal person. But suit yourself. As for me i'm gonna go take a nap under that tree over there, please try not to hit me again."

"It's about time for us to be going anyways, our cousin is about to get out of school." Hinata said dragging Naruto away.

After grabbing Neji from school they explained Naruto's idea to Neji, he agreed that it showed promise but told Naruto to concentrate on his byakuzen fighting techniques until he mastered them completely.

Which Naruto did, but he didn't completely stop trying to make something out of his chakra string idea.

Late at night when he had trouble sleeping he would practice throwing and releasing chakra strings, one night he realized that if he could find a way to retract his chakra strings without pulling them he might be able to change his direction in mid jump without having to run into something first. He smiled as he fell asleep, he had just thought of a secret technique that nobody else would have, now if only he could pull it off.

**A/N: Well what do ya know, i actually got it out rather fast. don't expect me to maintain this speed though, i'm about out of my pre-written chapters, and i have prior engagements that cannot be broken for the next two weeks or so. i may be able to get out 1 or 2 more chapters that are already written before that time comes though.**

**shameless plug: be sure to cheer on northern illinois university as we take on some school from florida in the International bowl. i'll be there in the NIU Band, somewhere.**

**oh and i'd like to thank my first constructive reviewer who actually gave me an opinion about the story, and where it was going. you know who you are.**


	4. the academy beckons

_**disclaimer: i do not own naruto, or anything else that is present in canon. if i did then i wouldn't need to worry about financing for school now would i?**_

"Hina-hime! We're gonna be late!"

Hearing his shouting, Hiashi walked out of his study and gave him a look. He then said, "Naruto come in here I need to speak with you a moment." certain that he was going to be yelled at for shouting in the main house...again. Naruto hung his head and followed Hiashi into his study. The clan head didn't say anything until the door was closed. He then turned to Naruto and his expression softened somewhat.

"Don't worry Naruto you're not in trouble."

"Then why did you ask me to come in here?"

Because, I needed to talk to you about something very important." Naruto looked up at him surprised. Hiashi continued.

"You have done well these last few years Naruto, you have mastered the gentle fist, albeit a greatly altered and much more archaic form than any Hyuga ever has. You have managed to surprise us in every way possible. Just when we think you have gone as far as you can go without byakugan, you figure out a way to go farther. You have even managed to create a jutsu for yourself which allows you to see almost as we do, and all before your first day at the academy...and the council is completely frustrated with you." he gave a very confused Naruto a hug, "you have made me very proud, but I have something very important to tell you. I know it will be hard but you cannot reveal your byakuzen jutsu to your peers at the academy. It is your greatest weapon, and you must ask anyone who knows of it not to reveal it as well. I know you probably wanted to use it to show off on your first day, but I think you should use something else. You can use it when you spar, but no showboating please...Now, have a good day and listen to the teachers. But no matter what happens today, remember that I am already proud of you, and that goes for you too Hinata." he said as he opened the door to reveal...nothing.

Hiashi was perplexed, he was sure he had felt his daughter's chakra signature outside the door listening in. then he heard a giggle from the window, "father I never use the same method twice in a row. You taught me better than that." Hinata was sitting on the windowsill watching them.

"Oh that's right I did," he said as he picked up a giggling Hinata from the window, soon he knew she would be too old for these little games, he would miss them when they had passed. But he still had one more daughter to raise, so the fun wasn't over yet. He put Hinata down next to Naruto and knelt down to their level so that he could look them in the eye.

"What I said was true, I am immeasurably proud of both of you, and no matter what happens in the future you will always be safe here within the walls of our estate." He gave both of them another hug, then stood up and tuned to leave but before he got to the door he turned around and said, "You know that if you tell anyone of this little meeting I'll deny everything right? We Hyuga need to keep up our reputation you know. Can't let the council start thinking I've gone soft."

He chuckled at their confused expressions. "Now come along children, I'm going to walk you to school on your first day, as any good father should."

Hinata and Naruto just shook their heads in wonder at the experience as they followed him out of the main house and to the academy. They were two of the very few people who knew of Hiashi's softer side, and part of the even smaller group that he showed it to. To Naruto he was just as much of a father as Hizashi was, since even though Naruto knew they weren't related by blood he saw all of them as his family, with Neji as the older brother, Hanabi as the younger sister, and Hinali as his mother, but Hinata was something more to him, he just didn't realize it yet.

When they got to the academy they bid farewell to Hiashi and went inside. Once they entered the classroom they found two seats in the back row and sat down. soon enough their teachers came in.

"Good morning class, I am your teacher Iruka, you will address me as Iruka-sensei. This is my assistant, Mizuki. Known to you as Mizuki-sensei." he had each student stand up and say their name. Once that was done he got down to business.

"As you all know, this is the Konoha Ninja Academy. Over the next four years Mizuki and I will be teaching you what it means to be a ninja and the skills required to survive in this line of work. Now that introductions are out of the way, let's see what we have to work with. How many of you know any jutsus already?"

Naruto and Hinata, along with several others raised their hands.

"Naru-chan,"Hinata whispered to him, "father told you not to show them the byakuzen."

"Don't worry Hina-hime," he whispered back, "I've got something else to show them instead."

They were each called up to the front of the classroom to demonstrate their skill. Shikamaru started it off by capturing Mizuki in his shadow and making him do a waltz, Hinata demonstrated her byakugan, Choji demonstrated his weak expansion jutsu (knocking Mizuki back into the wall by accident when he fell over), and Naruto used chakra strings to write 'wow' on the chalk board, but when he went for the eraser with his chakra string he lost control and instead of erasing the word he hit Mizuki with them instead.

"Sorry Mizuki-sensei, I guess I don't have complete comtrol yet." he said in apology.

"That's ok Naruto, at least it was only chalk." He replied.

When it was Sasuke's turn he requested to go outside to demonstrate his technique, Iruka consented, seeing as it was almost break time anyways.

When they were outside, Sasuke shot a fireball using his family's great fireball jutsu, straight at Mizuki. Naruto quickly shot several chakra strings at Mizuki and pulled him out of the way, and into the trunk of a tree. Iruka angrily turned to Sasuke, "Why did you shoot the fireball at Mizuki?" he asked in an angry voice. Sasuke looked unfazed by this show of anger.

"I thought it would be funny Iruka-sensei." he said simply. "Everyone else attacked him with their jutsus."

"No Sasuke, they didn't. Choji tripped, Naruto's was an accident, and Shikamaru demonstrated a non lethal technique. Those situations aren't the same at all. I'm afraid I'm going to have to notify your parents of this."

He went over to where Mizuki was just stirring, in order to help him up. When Mizuki came back to consciousness he saw Iruka standing over him.

"Are you OK?" Iruka asked.

"These kids are gonna kill me." was all he could say.

Iruka dismissed them for a 30 minute break/recess. Naruto and Hinata walked up to Shikamaru and a rather large boy who was constantly eating a bag of chips.

"Hey Shikamaru, remember us?" Naruto asked. The boy looked at them thoughtfully.

"Yeah, you're the kid who interrupted my nap last month at the park... Naruto, right? And you're...Hinata."

"Yeah, that's us. Hey listen would you mind not telling anyone about that technique that I was practicing? Uncle Hiashi said that I shouldn't tell anyone, he wants me to make it my secret weapon or something like that."

Shikamaru looked deep in thought for a second, then he nodded.

"Yeah I think I could do that, except I already kind of told someone about it, but he's trustworthy enough, and he only really talks to me anyways."

Naruto looked relieved, "That's good. Who did you tell anyways?"

"It's really troublesome, but I told Choji."

"Who's Choji?" Hinata asked

"Oh I forgot to introduce you guys. This," he indicated the kid next to him who was eating a bag of chips, " is Choji, he's my best friend. Choji this is Naruto and Hinata."

"Pleased to meet you," Choji said through mouthfuls of chips.

"It's nice to make your acquaintance Choji." Hinata said politely.

"Same here." Naruto said.

Shikamaru leaned close to them and spoke in a whisper, "He's a little sensitive about his size so never call him F-A-T."

"Why?" Naruto asked, "Because he'll get mad. If you don't believe me then just wait til our sparring sessions this afternoon. I'm pretty sure that his partner will make that mistake, they always do." just then the bell rang, ending the break and putting an end to their conversation as well.

* * *

After break was a lecture on jutsu theory for all of the students who hadn't known how to do any jutsus already. And after that came all of the normal subjects that kids learn in school, history, math, science etc. all of them centered on ninja related information of course. Then came lunch, and Naruto and Hinata ate a lunch that she had packed for them both, which despite his pleas, was not ramen since Hinata said that ramen was not healthy enough for growing ninja. They ate with Choji and Shikamaru since they were the only two kids that they had befriended so far. As they were eating they saw Sasuke and his newly acquired fan girls who were all fighting over who would get to sit next to him.

"Hina-chan, please promise me that you will never act like that around anyone." Naruto said in disgust as he turned away. "It isn't right for anyone, especially a future ninja, to act that way."

"I-I promise Naru-chan," Hinata said, "I don't really like Sasuke's attitude anyways. He reminds me of the way the elders treat you, and I don't like it."

"Well that's a relief. Let's talk about something else." Naruto said as they all 4 sat down under a tree. "What do you think they'll have us do this afternoon?"

Shikamaru looked at him, "I don't think they'll have us do much, since it's our first day. But they'll probably have us do some sparring to see where we rank in the class, and to give us sparring partners, or more likely sparring groups." he said thoughtfully.

"Sounds like fun." Naruto said.

"It just sounds troublesome to me." Shikamaru returned. "But it will be interesting to see how good everyone is. I feel bad for whoever gets Sasuke, he's probably going to try to use his jutsu if he can."

Hinata looked worried. "i don't think that they'll let him use it. It's not as if his fighting style requires it. And not very many people know how to use jutsus yet, so it wouldn't be fair."

Choji chose this point to say something. "I think Hinata is right Shikamaru, the academy probably wants us to be able to fight without using jutsus first, then they'll teach us to use them after they're sure that we know the basics."

"i hope so," Naruto said, "I don't really know any real jutsus other than the one that I showed in class." the bell chose to ring right after he said that, so they gathered up their trash and headed back inside to see what the afternoon had in store for them.

Shikamaru was right about the sparring. As soon as they had all settled down Iruka had them get up and head outside for sparring evaluation. Once they were all outside he asked for volunteers to fight in the first spar, only Sasuke raised his hand. He had Sasuke come over to where he was, and turned to the rest of them.

"Ok,, who wants to fight Sasuke?" he asked. "Anyone?" he looked surprised.

"Usually I have at leat 4 volunteers... Well since nobody wants to volunteer, I guess i'll have to pick." he looked down at the clipboard, "Naruto Uzumaki." said boy looked up when his name was called,

"Yes Iruka-sensei?" Iruka motioned him to come forward.

"You will be fighting Sasuke Uchiha in the first spar."

Hinata looked worried when the teacher said this.

"Be careful Naru-chan." She whispered to him as he left her for the indicated sparring circle.

"Don't worry Hina-hime, I'll be fine." he said back to her as he walked away.

When he got to Iruka's position the man explained the rules to them both.

"This is a practice spar, you are to use your preferred form of taijutsu, you may use any passive jutsu or dojutsu required for your particular form of taijutsu, but no offensive jutsus, we do not want anyone hurt or killed today. And we definitely don't any burns resulting from this match." he said this while directly looking at Sasuke. "that means no fire jutsus. Do you both understand?"

"Yes, Iruka-sensei." both boys answered.

"alright, points are scored when you get a clear hit on your opponent's chest or back, and the spar will be over once I call an end to it or if one of the opponents is forced out of the circle, you may begin as soon as I tell you to."

he backed out of the sparring circle

"Begin!" he shouted.

And begin they did.


	5. The Fight

_**DISCLAIMER: Whatever they say I still don't own Naruto or anything to do with the anime or the manga. **_

As soon as Iruka said begin, Naruto got down into his modified gentle fist stance and Sasuke got into his family taijutsu stance.

"What kind of a stance is that?" Sasuke asked. "You can't use the gentle fist without byakugan."

"This isn't gentle fist, it's my own form, I call it byakuzen." Naruto retorted.

"Well, whatever it is, it won't help you against me, I'm still gonna win this spar." Sasuke said.

"It doesn't matter what happens today Sasuke, this match means nothing in the long run." Naruto replied succinctly. "Ha! Shows what you know. This match will make me the top of the class. Once I get there nobody will be able to top me. And when I graduate at the top of our class, there will be nothing that can stop me in my rise to power!"

"You think that just by beating me you can become top of our class? That's pretty unlikely, and who said that you'll stay there even if you do beat me? There are four more years of the academy Sasuke, and anything can happen." Naruto said as they circled each other.

Sasuke was getting tired of Naruto's attitude. "Enough talk, Let's fight!" he shouted just before he charge the other boy.

Naruto activated his byakuzen, concentrating some of his chakra into his feet to enhance the vibrations he felt from the ground through his feet, doing the same thing to enhance his hearing as well, these two actions made up two thirds of his byakuzen, the other part was the advanced chakra detection jutsu found by Hinata, but it wasn't really necessary for this fight. Through his byakuzen he felt rather than saw the change in Sasuke's stance. When the other boy charged him he was ready with an answer to the attack. As Sasuke got nearer to him Naruto was able to analyze his movements and the vibrations created by the head-on charge. He could tell that there was something more to this attack than a simple hit. From the way Sasuke was moving towards him Naruto could tell that it was most likely a feint to get him to drop his guard. Instead of ducking the punch, Naruto shifted his position slightly so that the punch would miss him and cause Sasuke to over shoot and lose his balance. All of this was done in the fraction of a second before Sasuke's attack hit, he had waited so long to take action so that Sasuke wouldn't be able to change his attack. As soon as the attack missed him Naruto made an attack of his own, he hit Sasuke square on the chest with his knuckles, right at the center of the ribcage, he then used the elbow of his other arm to hit Sasuke in the back as the boy tried to recover from the missed punch that put him in the situation. Being hit in the back by Naruto's elbow caused Sasuke to hit the ground with an audible thump as Naruto flipped over him to get some distance and looked at Iruka for a second to confirm his double score before turning back to the fight.

"So you actually managed to hit me, I hope you enjoyed it because you won't be able to do it again" Sasuke said as he got up.

"You do know that pride comes before the fall don't you Sasuke? " Naruto taunted.

"I wish he wouldn't taunt him so much" Hinata said to nobody in particular as she watched the match. Naruto was clearly winning, and had been for the past ten minutes. Each time Sasuke attacked Naruto he would somehow miss and Naruto would score a hit. Sasuke was getting angrier and angrier with each passing moment, and it wasn't just because he couldn't seem to land a hit, Naruto kept taunting him every time he missed, and that just made him madder. For Sasuke this was unacceptable, nobody was allowed to be better than him, one of the elite Uchiha, and even worse than that, the boy seemed to be able to predict his every move, something only the sharingan was supposed to be able to do. But here was this boy, who didn't come from a clan and had no bloodlines to speak of, doing just that.

"Why won't you just stay still?" the Uchiha asked Naruto as he charged again, only to miss and get hit in the chest.

"Where's the fun in that? All you'll do is hit me, and I don't think that would feel very good. Of course I'm only guessing since I haven't gotten hit yet. What do you think? Does getting hit feel good to you?" Naruto taunted.

"What? Why would I think that getting hit felt good? " Sasuke asked, confused.

"I dunno you seem to be doing it a lot so you must like it."

"I do not like getting hit!"

"Then don't let me hit you." Naruto said simply.

Sasuke charged again and Naruto dodged just like he had all those other times. But this time when Sasuke missed he jumped over Naruto's expected attack and rolled before standing up behind Naruto and scoring his first hit of the match on Naruto's unguarded back. "Good job!" Naruto said, only infuriating Sasuke even more. But from them on the match went back and forth, both boys scoring several more hits before Iruka called an end to it.

"That's good enough" he said to them before turning to the rest of the class. "Now I hope the rest of you understand what we are looking for in your spars. I will pair you up and you will each fight one spar so we can evaluate your ability in taijutsu. Of course girls will fight against girls and boys against boys this year, but don't expect that to always be the case, in the following years we may mix it up just to see how you handle it. Now the next two to fight will be... Hinata Hyuga and Sakura Haruno. The two of you head to the center of the sparring circle, everyone else pay attention, you might just learn something."

"Good luck Hinata, and have fun with it." Naruto whispered to her as she passed him. " Thank-you Naruto, and don't worry, I will" she said back.

The fight between the two girls was a lopsided match-up, that much was clear from the start. But Hinata decided that she would allow Sakura a few hits, and even a chance to show her skills, or rather lack of them, before she started to use her gentle fist moves and showed her true skill level. They started out with Sakura charging and trying to overpower the smaller Hinata, assuming as most people did, that her size and quiet demeanor was also an indication of her lack of skills. But Hinata just parried her blows and stood her ground, the sloppiness of Sakura's fighting led Hinata to decide that allowing her any hits at all would only hinder the other girl rather than help her. After Sakura's second attempt at breaking through Hinata's defenses, most people could tell that Hinata wasn't trying at all.

Naruto ended this by shouting to her, "Alright Hinata! I think she's had enough of a chance to prove herself! Show her the true power of the Hyuga clan!" As soon as Naruto said that Hinata ended the confrontation and flipped backwards to the edge of the circle. Activating her byakugan she charged back into the fray and began to use her gentle fist to great effect. But Sakura wasn't going to go down easy, she kept trying to gain the advantage. After five minutes of showing her true skill Hinata ended the bout by forcing Sakura out of the circle. After Iruka named Hinata the winner Sakura came over to her and said, "Thank you."

Hinata was surprised. "For what?" she asked.

"For allowing me to show what I could do before you beat me, I know that you could have beaten me in ten seconds but you gave me a chance and didn't hurt me even though you could have." Sakura answered.

"Well you're welcome. Iruka-sensei said that these matches were to determine our skill levels, and I decided that if he can't tell that I was holding back at the beginning then I would just work my way up."

Hinata said in reply. "Oh Hey do you want to sit with me and Naruto?" she asked. "No thank-you, not today anyways." Sakura replied before she went to sit with Ino.

The rest of the spars went in much the same way as the first two had. One of the opponents almost always far outclassing the other, but the other students took their cue from Hinata and allowed the weaker student a chance to show their skills before winning the spar in a show of strength and skill.

Afterwards Iruka addressed them as a group, "I am proud of all of you, tomorrow there will be a list of sparring groups posted on the bulletin board. These will be your groups until I say otherwise, they are based on your current level of skill not your physical ability and you will have to prove to me that your skills have progressed to the next level before I will let you move up to the next level. Likewise if I feel that your skills have stagnated or the rest of the group have progressed beyond your level, I will move you down one level. Now before I dismiss you for the day, does anyone have any questions?"

Sasuke raised his hand. "Iruka-sensei, what about weapons and physical training?"

"A very good question Sasuke, we will deal with those subjects tomorrow. Now if there are no more questions, you are all dismissed for the day."

Hizashi was outside of the academy waiting for them when Fugaku Uchiha walked up to him.

"So I guess the rumors were true after all, the Hyugas actually were arrogant enough to allow the kyubi brat to become a ninja."

Hizashi gave him a stern look. "You know better than to speak of him like that in public Fugaku, the Third's law is still in effect. So I take it that your youngest excuse for a son is now enrolled at the academy as well?"

"You will show me the proper respect!"

"I only show respect to people who deserve it such as my brother or the Hokage or Naruto. You however do not deserve my respect so long as you hold to your current doctrine of natural Uchiha superiority without any hard work to back it up. Until such time as you deign to reconsider this foolish idea I see no reason to even try to speak to you, let alone give you my respect."

Fugaku was indignant at this offensively true statement. "Why you!..."

"This conversation is now over, I must pickup my sons and my niece from the academy and conduct them home." With that Hizashi walked away towards the waiting children. He would need to tell Hiashi of this conversation before the next council meeting. He would certainly get an earful about it, so it was only right to warn him.

That night Hinata couldn't sleep, she was worried about Naruto. She had seen the look that Sasuke was giving him after their fight, and she didn't like it, he looked ready to kill, and it was only the first spar. What would happen if they ever fought again? Nothing good, of that much she was sure, but Naruto kept telling her not to worry about it, that he would be fine. Hinata wished that she could believe him, but he could be extremely naïve sometimes, and this seemed like one of those times. She came to a decision, if Naruto was too naïve to be worried about his own safety then she would just have to worry for him, and do the one thing that he never could: ask her father what to do.

She walked out of her room and peaked into Hiashi's study, the light was still on. "Daddy?" This late at night there were no people in the main house so maintaining a sense of decorum was not required, she could call Hiashi whatever she wanted. "Can I talk to you?"

Hiashi looked up in surprise. "Hinata why are you still up? You should be in bed."

she shuffled over to him and climbed onto his lap. "I was daddy, but I couldn't sleep. I'm worried about Naru-chan, I think he made an enemy today, and I'm scared for him." She told him about the fight and about what she saw afterwards that scared her so much.

"I see. And Naruto isn't worried about this?"

Hinata shook her head. "No, but he didn't see the look on Sasuke's face when he lost or how angry Sasuke got during the match. Naruto was having too much fun to care. But I think Sasuke is going to try to hurt Naruto or get back at him somehow, and if he won't be worried for himself then I'm going to have to be worried for him."

Hiashi was surprised at what his daughter was saying. She sounded so mature as she said it, yet she was still a little girl looking for her daddy to fix something for her. He saw the glimmer of something in her eyes, something that wasn't there before, a maturity that was beginning to show through, in that maturity he saw the understanding of just what could happen to Naruto if Sasuke tried to hurt him. He couldn't let that fear come to life, not while it was still preventable.

"Alright Hina-chan I'll look into this for you, and find some way to keep Naruto safe. Now you need to go to bed so that you can stay awake in school tomorrow."

"OK daddy, just promise me that you'll keep my Naru-kun safe for me," Hinata said sleepily as Hiashi picked her up and carried her back to her bed. She was asleep before he even got out of the study. "I promise Hime," he whispered as he tucked her in.

As he turned to leave he paused in the door way. He had just realized what Hinata's worry about Naruto really meant, she had a crush on Naruto, she just didn't realize it yet, but soon she would be blushing and acting shy around Naruto. He would have to prevent that, it would only hinder her in the years to come, perhaps he could have Hinali talk to her once it started, she would know what to say. After all Hinali had been the same way, Hinata was definitely her mother's daughter. He smiled as he went to tell Hinali about their daughter's new crush.

Two months had gone by since Hinata came to him with her concerns, and Hiashi had done something about it. The next day he went to Hizashi's house after breakfast and talked to Naruto. He told him not to antagonize Sasuke, and not to draw too much attention to himself. When Naruto started to protest about not doing his best Hiashi told him that at least for him it would be safer to be in the middle of the class, causing people to think that he was an unremarkable ninja, at least for now. When Naruto asked why that was Hiashi couldn't tell him, he just told him that it had to do with who his parents were and the reasons why he was being raised by the Hyugas. He promised to tell Naruto when the time was right but not before then. Naruto had taken his words to heart, he didn't excel in anything except for sparring which couldn't be helped since he had already demonstrated his skills. But what Hiashi hadn't expected was Naruto's methods of practicing his skills since he couldn't excel without drawing attention to himself. Naruto had become a prankster, using each prank as a way to informally practice the skills he was concealing. After the first report of this reached his ears Hiashi had barely contained his laughter, once he got it under control he called Iruka to have a meeting with him.

Iruka walked into Hiashi's office perplexed, normally it was the teacher who had to call these meetings.

"You wanted to see me Hiashi-sama?"

Hiashi did his best to maintain his composure. "Yes, I wanted to speak to you about Naruto's recent behavior. I trust that you are aware of his special circumstances?"

"Yes Hiashi-sama, I was informed of his...prisoner...as soon as it became apparent that he was in my class."

"His prisoner is the reason that I told Naruto to hide his skills. The problem is that apparently he got bored with hiding his skills so he started using them to become a prankster."

Iruka was confused, "Wait a minute you're telling me that Naruto is even more skilled than he is letting on?"

"Of course, why do you think it took you two months to figure out who the prankster was, Naruto got bored so he made it harder for himself."

"And what exactly am I supposed to do with this information? I can't let him get away with these pranks now that I know it's him who is responsible."

Hiashi smiled, startling Iruka who thought that Hyugas were incapable of such an action. "On the contrary Iruka. I expect you to punish him severely each and every time that you catch him. Of course that means that you have to be able to prove conclusively that it was him who did it, you can't just assume that every little thing that goes wrong is his fault, that just wouldn't be fair. In Naruto's mind this is a challenge, a way to exercise his skills without drawing undue attention to just how good he is, but now it is also a battle of wits between him and you. Try to enjoy it. And don't worry, after his birthday the pranks will be slowing somewhat, I'm sure that his birthday present will be keeping him quite busy."


	6. finding naruto's present

**Disclaimer: Do I own Naruto? Hmm let's check, nope I still don't own it. Except in imagination land but most people don't think it exists. Besides who wants to live in a place where a giant white rabbit named harvey can appear and disappear at will. Somehow he always gets into the wine cellar to get drunk on orange juice and starts singing _don't stop believin'_ with the monkey under my bed while the talking squirrel outside just glares at them in disgust (he hates _Journey_ with a passion). What was I talking about again? Oh yeah I don't own Naruto or anything related to it in any way. Ok now, I gotta go, there are some nice men in white coats who want to take me for a little ride, they keep saying something about a funny farm. They were even nice enough to lend me a nice jacket to wear while I'm there. **

**I'm just kidding... at least about the crazy stuff, I really don't own Naruto though,....here's the next chapter, have fun.**

Hiashi walked into the Hokage's office and bowed. "Hokage-sama. I would like to have Naruto trained by a weapons master as soon as possible. I would be willing to finance it myself, but seeing as he is training to be a ninja I felt that you should have some say in the matter."

the Hokage looked at him in surprise. "Yet again you exceed my expectations Hiashi. I never though that you would want him trained with a weapon, I was under the impression that you thought that weapons were useless."

"I still believe that Hokage-sama at least where I am concerned, but where my daughter is concerned I will take no chances. And she is worried for Naruto's safety due to a boy named Sasuke Uchiha apparently taking a strong dislike to him. My reasoning is if she is this worried now when the offending boy is unable to do something about his animosity, then how much worse will it be when the boy actually has the power to do something to Naruto? It seems a wiser course of action to train him now to defend himself and settle Hinata's fears rather than wait for an attack to come and let him possibly die before taking action. Of course I know that the kyuubi gives him healing powers and you know that too, but Hinata doesn't and it is distracting her."

"Hiashi is this entire decision based on concern for your daughter, or have you actually come to care for the boy?"

Hiashi looked down at the floor. "Are the privacy seals activated?"

"Of course! Why would I allow you to discuss Naruto's future without them?" the Hokage said in mock offense.

After he heard that Hiashi looked the Hokage straight in the eye. "Yes Sarutobi, I have come to care for the boy a great deal through my time with him. I have found him to be surprising and even engaging at times, with a wisdom and an intellect far beyond his years. He has actually created a jutsu that allows him to have almost byakugan-like visual acuity. He is truly Minato's son, and the exact kind of boy that I would like my daughters to marry. He has great power, yet he is completely humble about it, and only seeks to learn. In fact I have been considering opening up his clan's library to him, just to see what he would do with it. He has already told me about the hiraishin scroll he found there last time." the Hokage looked shocked. "he found it and when he saw exactly how advanced it was he put it back, if that doesn't show maturity then I don't know what does, most boys his age would have taken it and killed themselves or someone else trying to get it right."

the Hokage looked impressed. "very well Hiashi, do as you wish. But there is a certain weapons master that I want you to go to for his training. His name is Heiwa Sakusei, he runs a weapons shop called Heiwa no Buki."

Hiashi almost laughed at the hilarity of it all, a weapons master whose name meant 'peace creator', irony truly was a cruel mistress indeed.

"Why this one weapons master?"

"Because he is the only one that I can trust not to hurt Naruto and claim that it was a training accident. He was one of the few who were not up in arms about my decision not to kill Naruto after the fox was sealed within him."

"Very well Hokage-sama I will do as you wish and go meet with him as soon as I leave here."

"Good, see that you do Hiashi."

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The weapons shop was rather close to the Hyuga compound, Hiashi guessed that it was so that Heiwa could help out if Naruto was attacked when he was younger but he wasn't absolutely sure, he didn't know if the man's loyalty was a strong as the Hokage believed, he would be cautious until he was given a good reason to trust the man.

After he walked in an ordinary looking man came out of the back room, limping slightly. "How can I help you sir?" the weapons master asked. Hiashi looked him over as if to determine his worth. The man was tall with an average build, he looked rather young to be a weapons master but Hiashi could see that he had experience. His bald head glistened in the dim light of the shop, and his clothing looked slightly foreign to Hiashi. At the moment he wasn't sure whether this man would be a good teacher for Naruto.

"I am here to see about procuring weapons instruction for my nephew, the Hokage reccomended that I come here."

"Tell me about the boy." said the weapons master

"Why?" Hiashi asked. The weapons master looked him straight in the eye.

"How else will I be able to chose the correct weapon to teach him? Granted it is his choice in the end, but the weapons master is the one who is supposed to present him with the weapon most suitable to his personality and style."

"Alright." Hiashi said. And he began to tell him about Naruto. Five minutes after he had started the weapons master held up his hand to silence him.

"I can tell that this boy is a little out of the ordinary so this might take awhile, would you like to come into the back room to sit down and have some tea with me? It will make it much easier to concentrate, and then you can tell me the details about the boy which are not meant for prying ears."

Hiashi looked at the man with a newfound respect, he hadn't expected the man to realize the secrecy surrounding Naruto so quickly. Of course the man knew about the kyuubi sealed within Naruto, what adult villager didn't? But this man had sensed that there was an even larger secret about his past, one that was too dangerous to speak of in an open shop like this.

"That is a very good idea Sakusei-san. But what about the shop?" Hiashi asked.

"I don't get much business this time of day anyways, besides I can just call it my lunch break." the man said with a smile.

"Very well then, let us continue this conversation in private." he said. Hearing his aknowledgement, the weapons master limped into the back room and Hiashi followed.

When they had sat down in an empty room and the tea was ready, Heiwa sealed the door to the room with a privacy seal and turned to Hiashi.

"Now," he said, "Tell me the secret history of Naruto Uzumaki, Lord Hiashi."

Hiashi wasn't really surprised that the man already knew both his and Naruto's names despite having never been informed of either. Any good weapons master should have been able to glean enough information from simple conversation and combine it with knowledge already available to him in order to come up with enough insight to tell something about the people he was facing. The fact that this man had done it so quickly only proved that he was most likely not only good at his job, he was great at it. Hiashi's respect for him rose slightly, his intuition was impressive despite the fact that Hiashi was well known in the village and it was common knowledge that Naruto lived with his clan.

"Very well." he said. And he told Heiwa Sakusei about Naruto's exploits that had been kept from the general public, the incident with the kumo nin seemed to be of great interest to him, as was Naruto's creation of the byakuzen with very little assistance.

"You mean to tell me that this boy took down a jonin of the cloud village without using the kyuubi's power?" Heiwa asked incredulously.

"Yes, although I am pretty sure that the tree we found them by had something to do with it, there was a rather large dent in the trunk after the incident. The truly amazing thing about the whole thing is that instead of running away Naruto began to pursue the man after he got free." Hiashi said with a hint of pride.

"And he seriously created that byakuzen thing on his own?" Heiwa asked, amazed at the ingenuity that Naruto showed in creating the technique.

"Yes,the only thing I did was give him access to his clan's archives that I have hidden away within my clan's library. And then help him with some logistical details, such as where to get his training supplies, and turning a blind eye to his late night practice sessions." Hiashi said.

"Alright, I think I can draw some conclusions now. Please let me know if I am correct." Heiwa said. Hiashi nodded and waited for him to continue.

"From what you have said I can conclude three things for certain. The first one being that Naruto is a rather unpredictable child who shows great ingenuity in his efforts. Second, I can infer that he is very attached to your daughter Hinata and holds her in high regard. And third, I believe that Naruto is fiercely loyal to his friends and family and would do anything for them, and even more so where Hinata is concerned. His life basically revolves around her doesn't it?"

"Yes it does seem that way sometimes, and the same thing can be said for Hinata, her life seems to revolve around him as well. In fact, I am only doing this because she asked me to,Well not really, its more like she asked me to keep him safe for her because she couldn't do it herself yet." He told him about the conversation that he and Hinata had the night after their first day at the academy, and her concerns regarding Naruto's safety.

"Then maybe it is not wise to _only_ train Naruto to defend himself, perhaps I should train her as well. After all she is concerned enough about him to request that you do something like this, if he ever really is in danger she may try to defend him with or without the skills necessary to succeed."

Hiashi looked thoughtful. "i hadn't thought of that, I simply assumed that she would always use the gentle fist just as I have done, quite successfully I might add. I know that she isn't a prodigy like her cousin Neji, but I had hoped that she would improve to a point that such a thing would be possible." Hiashi said sadly.

"I know of a weapon that can utilize her skills, and even improve them if she works hard enough. It is a rather...unusual weapon. One that has not been seen in this region for years, in fact I doubt that anyone has ever actually seen it in use, other than me that is." the weapons master said proudly.

"What is this weapon? And why have I never heard of it?" Hiashi asked curiously. The weapons master got up and went over to a shelf that was set into the wall. He picked up a case that was only a foot long and returned to where he had been sitting before. "They are called Deer Horn Knives." the weapons master said as he opened the case to reveal the special weapons. "Don't let the name fool you, these are fearsome weapons to use. They are capable of beating any bladed weapon in use today. The greatest thing about these knives is that they will be underestimated every time, giving your daughter a great advantage in combat."

Hiashi only nodded as he examined the weapons, they were formed out of two crescent shaped steel blades facing into each other, this gave the wielder an extremely large cutting surface to work with while keeping the actual weapon quite small. One of the crescents had a point that was slightly longer than the other three, Hiashi guessed that this was the main 'blade'. The inner curve of the longer crescent was wrapped in a leather grip, making the other crescent's blades into a hand guard as well as a blade. Hiashi could see how this weapon would be underestimated at first, they certainly didn't seem very formidable on their own, but they appeared to be designed to be used in pairs. This was confirmed when Heiwa picked up the blades and demonstrated their use on a sparring dummy. The master whirled and struck the dummy multiple times in the space of a few seconds, all traces of the limp were gone from his step as he proceeded to completely destroy the dummy in less than a minute, Hiashi wondered whether the whole limp was just a ruse to get his opponents to underestimate him, it certainly worked.

"See what I mean?" Heiwa asked after he had finished his demonstration. Hiashi certainly did.

"Yes I do, and I will allow Hinata to be instructed in the use of these weapons, she'll be the first Hyuga in three generations to learn the use of a weapon that is not mandatory for all ninja to know. Such a skill will only serve to make her a stronger ninja and thus more likely to survive her career. But what of Naruto? He is the real reason I came here today, what weapon will you teach him to wield?" Hiashi asked.

Heiwa smiled. "I have a special weapon for him, it is another rarity around here, but it is less likely to be underestimated, both due to it's name and it's fearsome appearance." the man put away the deer horn knives and got out another case, it was over three feet long and about 10 inches wide. "this is a tiger hook sword, it is another tandem weapon and very similar in it's uses to the deer horn knives." he said as he opened the case. Hiashi thought that he would have to take his word for it because what he saw in the case was nothing like the weapons that he had just been shown. Lying in the case next to an oddly shaped scabbard was the weirdest looking sword that Hiashi had ever seen. The handle was again wrapped in leather and it had a crescent shaped hand guard that ran the length of the handle, the odd thing about it was that the crescent's points face outwards from the blade and was only connected to the sword itself by two pieces of metal situated on either end of the handle. It was obvious that the hand guard was not for decoration, Hiashi could see that it was actually a blade unto itself, though why that was he couldn't even begin to fathom. At the base of the handle was another blade that resembled a dagger in length and appearance, and tied to that was a cloth that seemed to have no use at all, at least as far as Hiashi could see. But the main blade was the oddest one of all, it had no point to speak of, instead the tip of the blade was curved in towards the handle, forming the hook that obviously gave the weapon it's name. As Heiwa picked up the sword to demonstrate it's use, Hiashi saw that the case did not hold just one sword, there were actually two of them there, obviously they were meant for tandem use just like the deer horn knives. Once he picked them up, Heiwa did not immediately attack the practice dummy as he did before, instead he went through a series of choreographed movements, picking up speed with each movement until his movements were a complete blur. Then he did something that Hiashi didn't expect, he slowed down his movements and then hooked the two swords together by their blades and let go of one of the handles. Hiashi half expected the sword to go flying into the wall or something similar, but instead the sword merely extended until it was only an extension of it's brother as Heiwa swung it around. Now the use of the clothe was apparent to him, it seemed to be used to stabilize the path of the blade, creating just enough drag to stop the free blade from getting ahead of it's twin and coming unhooked. The whole thing was amazing, instead of two three foot long blades, there was now only one and it was six feet long, any enemy within that six foot zone was now dead. Now Hiashi could see that the crescent shaped hand guard/blade and the dagger on the end of the hilt were really meant to be used as weapons just like the longer blade was. This truly was a formidable weapon, Naruto would love it.

Heiwa's demonstration ended in him catching the handle of the free swinging sword in his free hand without any difficulty at all. He came back over to where Hiashi was sitting near the door.

"What do you think?" the weapons master asked, only slightly out of breath.

"I think that Naruto and Hinata are going to love these swords, but how do we get them to chose them over the more conventional varieties that are out there?" Hiashi asked.

"That's simple, on Naruto's birthday you bring both him and Hinata here to my shop, I know that most stores are closed due to the anniversary of the kyuubi attack, but I think we'll make an exception for him. I am confident that they will be drawn to these weapons, their personalities fit the styles perfectly. Though I am pretty sure that Naruto will want to learn both weapons." Heiwa said.

"How can you be so sure?" Hiashi asked

"Like you said, his world revolves around your daughter and she will be learning the deer horn knives, he will want to help her and would only end up learning it anyways. Plus from what you told me I am pretty sure that Naruto will become a combat specialist when he grows older, and not every fight takes place at the end of a sword, he will need a reliable close combat weapon for when the tiger hooks will not be feasible to use without harm to himself or his teammates." Heiwa explained patiently.

"You have a good point. Very well, I will have Naruto learn both forms. Thank-you for seeing me and giving me a demonstration before I brought the children here. I will see you in two days on Naruto's birthday. We will come by around noon to ensure that you have time to get everything ready." Hiashi said as he got up to leave.

"Thank-you for allowing me to teach your children Lord Hiashi." Heiwa said as Hiashi left.

'_Naruto is going to love this' _Hiashi thought as he made the short trip home.

**A/N: the weapons I mentioned are real but they are actually chinese in origin not japanese as most of the weapons mentioned in Naruto are, I just couldn't find one that seemed to fit him well without making him too similar to other characters. The tiger hook swords certainly fit that description, ane the deer horn knives just seemed perfect for Hinata's gentle fist movements. Plus I thought that the swords I chose were really cool, and I tried to do them justice with my descriptions.**


	7. naruto's birthday present

**A/N:sorry it took so long and that it's so short, but i felt that i kept you all waiting long enough. i am working on the next part as you read this and hopefully i can get it up within a week. i have plenty of ideas for later it's just getting them out of the academy with the right abilities that is proving troublesome. i tried to post some video examples of the weapons techniques that i am having them learn but fanfiction isn't letting me post the links in a chapter. i guess i could put them in my profile, but that means giving it an overhaul. i'll let you guys know when it's finished. that being said, on with the story.**

**(oh yeah, i don't own naruto or any related manga/anime material presented here, however the OCs mentioned in here are made up by my own deranged mind and i would appreciate if anyone who wishes to use them would let me know first. i don't care if you do, i just want to read the story you create with them.)**

**and now for the reason you all put up with my idiocy: the next chapter in the epic Naruto fanfic "The salvation of the Hyuga Clan" **

Fugaku Uchiha was not a happy man at the moment. All of his longstanding plans surrounding the demon boy seemed to be falling apart before his very eyes. First his youngest son was defeated in a spar by the stupid brat on their very first day in the academy, and then the demon had the audacity to befriend the heirs of the Nara and Akimichi clans. Fugaku had been counting on the support of those clans when the time came to rid the village of the demon boy's menace. Now they stood ready to defend the boy merely for the sake of his friendship with their respective heirs, and where the Nara and Akimichi clans went, the Yamanaka were sure to follow. That legendary partnership, which had stood for two generations already and was now in line for it's third incarnation, was going to ruin several years worth of planning on Fugaku's part. Granted the clan's stance on the demon boy's continued existence had always been neutral, but Fugaku had assumed that their lack of a position on the matter had more to do with fear of the Hyuga clan than with an actual opinion. He had been certain that once the boy was dealt with they would come out on his side, only now he wasn't so sure, they hadn't come out and said it yet but Fugaku could see the tide of opinion regarding the demon brat turning in the boy's favor within those three clans. Without their support it would be nearly impossible to escape any legal or financial ramifications that could possibly result from the boy's elimination. He needed more information before he could decide on his next course of action. And there was only one ninja who was skilled enough to fool the Hyugas and their accursed Byakugan, his son Itachi, true he had been getting more and more distant as of late, but he was still loyal to the Uchiha clan and would not be able to refuse a direct order from it's leader. He walked to the door of his office and called for a servant to summon Itachi immediately, they would have to move fast if they were to have any chance of getting rid of the demon brat before it was too late.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto was extremely excited. Today was his birthday, and they were heading somewhere special, he had no idea where they were going or why they had ventured outside of the Hyuga compound on today of all days. They had never before left the compound on his birthday so he knew that there must be a reason for their adventure today. He ran into the store his 'uncle' had spoken of without knowing exactly what he would find there, he then froze in shock, never in a million years would he have expected this, he knew that the Hyuga clan had sworn off of weapons three generations ago when the gentle fist style had been perfected. So why were they in a weapons shop now? He turned to his uncle to ask him that question, but was suddenly speechless when he saw the look on Hiashi's face. He was...smiling? Yes he was smiling, such an expression looked foreign on the face of a man who had carefully cultivated his reputation of arrogance and power in the eyes of the general populace of the village. Naruto had only seen Hiashi smile a few times, and never outside of the compounnd where they lived. Even within the compound the man kept his face a careful mask of indifference, only those who knew him best, such as his wife or his brother and their children, had ever seen him smile, and always it was inside his office with the privacy seals activated where no snooping elder would be able to see it and call him weak. Naruto got over his shock when Hiashi spoke to him.

"Naruto I have decided that it is time for you to learn to defend yourself with more than just your hands. There is only so much that you can do of the gentle fist without the Byakugan, and your Byakuzen abilities can only go so far in making up for that fact before they too fall short of the mark. Since I do not know of any normal taijutsu teachers that I can fully trust with your training, besides normal taijutsu just won't cut it in the ninja world, you will need something more if you wish to survive your ninja career. That being the case, I will allow you to learn to fight with any weapon that you see here, I don't care how much it will cost, I only care that you learn to fight to the best of your ability."

Naruto was amazed at this turn of events. He had wanted to learn how to fight with a weapon ever since he had gone with Hizashi to get the kunais for his byakuzen training and seen all the cool weapons in the store, but he had thought that he would have to wait until he was a ninja to even be able to consider such an idea. There was also the fact that the store that the two had gone to that day didn't like him for some reason, Hizashi had gotten into a fight with the man at the counter, he wasn't sure but he suspected that the fight had something to do with his presence in the store. In the end Hizashi had needed to threaten the man in order to get him to serve them. No member of the Hyuga clan had ever gone to that weapons shop again. Naruto was brought back to the present when he realized that the others who were in the store with him were looking at him expectantly, as if waiting for a reaction from him. He gave them one that they wouldn't soon forget.

"**this is the best birthday present ever!!!!!**" he shouted, startling his companions. "Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!" Naruto then realized that he was making a scene, which was probably not what his uncle wanted him to do, so he calmed himself down and resumed his carefully cultivated self control that he had lost in his excitement. He bowed to Hiashi and said in a calm voice, "Thank you for this great honor Hiashi-sama, I hope to make you proud and bring honor to the Hyuga clan with this endeavor that you are allowing me to embark on." Hinata giggled at his loss of control, she had always found these situations funny for some reason, maybe because it reminded her that there was another person who lived in the Hyuga compound who wasn't a perfect Hyuga, that meant she wasn't alone.

Hiashi was also greatly amused by Naruto's antics and his sudden reversion into the perfect Hyuga tone. Over the years they had been trying to make him slightly calmer and less reactionary in his daily life, they had mostly succeeded. Only when Naruto was extremely excited did his old hyperactivity come back for a few seconds. He wasn't boring, not by a long shot, but they had succeeded in causing Naruto to think about his actions before proceeding with them.

Hiashi bowed as well and said, "you are welcome Naruto, now go choose your weapon."

Naruto ran in like a kid in a candy store, or rather an academy student choosing his first real weapon. He quickly found the largest sword in the store, but he could tell that it wasn't for him, something about it just gave him an ominous feeling, like one day it would try to kill him or something. The tag on it's stand read: _Zanbato_ (Horse slaying sword) a sword type most famous for it's use by one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, currently wielded by Zabuza the demon of the hidden mist. Naruto moved on to another sword type, he didn't think he would be strong enough to use that sword anyways.

_'hmm let's see...' _he thought,_ 'I need a weapon that is strong and deadly but still agile enough for use with my Byakuzen. It needs to have killing power without sacrificing defensive capabilities. And it needs to have a little something to give me an edge in my fights.'_ Something in the back of the shop caught his eye. He slowly walked towards it, as if he was in a trance. Hinata followed him, curious as to what could hold her best friend's attention for so long. He passed up every weapon in the shop. Every time they came to a weapon's case she was sure that he would stop, they passed up Katanas and Naginatas and Wakizashis and even a specialized longbow with blades on each tip. When they finally stopped at the case holding the weapons chosen by Hiashi earlier that week ( though Hinata didn't know about that yet) she was surprised at what she saw. In the case were two of the weirdest swords that she had ever seen, one had so many curves that she didn't even think it was a weapon ( the tiger hook swords), and the other one looked like something out of a scifi movie (the deer horn knives, they really do look like something out of star trek). She ended up staring at the 'deer horn knives', as the label called them, in awe. She had no idea how they were used but she could tell that they were extremely deadly. She found herself wanting to try them out, and maybe try to convince her father to let her use them, those knives looked like they were perfect for a gentle fist user such as herself. While Hinata was entranced by the deer horn knives Naruto was staring at the tiger hook swords, just as much in awe of them as Hinata was of the knives in front of her. He kept switching his gaze between the two weapons, but mostly he was staring at the swords. If he could learn to use such a weapon he would become a great ninja and best of all he could protect his Hina-hime from all the bad men this world had to offer. Unnoticed by the two children, a man walked up behind them.

"i see you've made your choice." he said, startling them. They hadn't even heard him approaching them.

Naruto recovered first. "yes I have Mr...."

"Oh I'm sorry kids, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Heiwa Sakusei, I am a weapons master and the owner of this shop. I am also the man whom the Hokage and your uncles have personally entrusted your weapons training to, you should feel honored that the Hokage has taken such an interest in your training. I don't train just anybody you know, a student has to show skill, courage, perseverance, compassion and humility if they wish me to even consider training them. You are lucky that the Hokage and your uncles have decided that you are worthy of my considerable talents, otherwise you wouldn't even be here.

Now then, I see that you have chosen the tiger hook swords, unfortunately the fact that you are training to be a ninja excludes you from using this weapon."

"What?!! I thought Uncle Hiashi said that I could choose any weapon in the shop!" Naruto interrupted.

Heiwa sighed, "if you settle down and listen then you'll hear the rest of what I was going to say," Naruto immediately stopped his tantrum and listened.

"Thank you, as I was saying, the fact that you are training to be a ninja excludes you from using this weapon. And there is a very good reason for this, as a ninja you will be fighting in all types of situations and all types of environments, not all of them conducive to this type of weapon. Hallways, for example, are too small and enclosed for you to fight correctly with the tiger hook swords, and sometimes a kunai or taijutsu just won't have the stopping power needed. In order to ensure that you have every advantage in your fights I don't allow my students to learn the tiger hook swords if they wish to also become ninjas. Of course if you also learned how to fight with a smaller weapon such as the deer horn knives that your girlfriend is admiring, then I would let you learn the tiger hook swords as well." _ 'thankfully this kid is still gullible, now we won't need to make any excuses as to why we are having him train in both weapons._' Heiwa thought as he was explaining all of this to Naruto.

Hiashi, Hizashi and Hinali came up to them just then and saw that the children had made their choices, though Hinata had no idea that she was in fact choosing her own weapon as well as helping Naruto find his.

The placement of weapons in the shop was not by accident, the weapons in the shop had been arranged so that Naruto would have to pass up nearly every weapon in the ninja's arsenal before he could consider the ones that had been chosen for him.

Hiashi cleared his throat so that they would listen to him.

"Naruto, if you have chosen your weapon then let us go to the counter and arrange for lessons and purchase your training weapons."

As the men headed towards the counter to make the arrangements Hinali grabbed Hinata's arm and held her back.

"I noticed you staring at those knives Hinata. Would you like to learn how to wield them as Naruto will?"

Hinata stared at her, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing.

"Y-yes mother, I would like that. B-but father would never allow me to do that, no Hyuga has learned how to wield anything other than the basic ninja tools in three generations."

"Well your father has decided that you should be given this chance if you so desire it. You will be taught alongside Naruto, after all it was you who gave your father the idea to let Naruto learn a weapon anyways. Your little talk with him after your first day at the academy did more than you thought it would. Your new weapons teacher convinced him that it would be better to have you learn this skill _with_ Naruto. Think of this as a test case, a way to see if the Hyuga clan really is better off not using weapons." Hinali explained

"Thank you mother, I won't let you down." Hinata said before she ran up to the counter to inform Naruto of the news. Heiwa was right about one thing at least, Naruto was even more enthusiastic about his upcoming weapons training after he heard that Hinata was joining him.


	8. the calm before the storm

**I do not own Naruto or anything related to him if I did he probably wouldn't be such an idiot in canon.**

Hiashi called Naruto into his office when they got back to the Hyuga compound, he had one or two more surprises for Naruto. When he had closed the door he turned to Naruto and said, "I have two more surprises for you."

Naruto got excited again. "Ooh what are they?"

"Well, since I told you not to draw attention to yourself in the academy it has struck me that such an order might hinder your development as a ninja. So I am going to give you outside training as well, starting with the jutsu that will make it all possible. I believe you are aware of the clone family of jutsus, am I correct?"

Naruto nodded, "Yes, but how will one of those help me study more?"

Hiashi smirked in anticipation of Naruto's reaction to his next words, "There is a type of clone that has the capability to learn and pass on knowledge to the user. It is known as the shadow clone, and it is a forbidden technique for anybody under jonin level because of how much chakra it requires to work. I'm going to teach it to you because, despite all appearances to the contrary, you have more chakra than your entire class combined including the teachers. Once I teach you how to make shadow clones you will begin leaving several of them at home every day so that they can study in the clan archives and develop the skills that you will need to survive as a ninja."

Naruto's eyes got several times larger during Hiashi's explanation, by the end of it he could hardly contain his excitement. "That is so cool uncle Hiashi! What am I gonna learn first? Fireball jutsus? Shunshin? Oh I know, how about summoning?"

Hiashi chuckled, "Slow down there Naruto. First we have to see if you can even make a shadow clone before we can begin planning what you will learn. And besides, I have several very specific subject areas that I want you to study, starting with Fuinjutsu. Your father was an amazing seal master and I have a feeling that you inherited his talent for seal making, along with starting out on seals you will be brushing up on several areas that the academy's instructors have been neglecting such as genjutsu and since you are goofing off in class to hide your true potential your clones will study up on all of the academics that you will be missing out on, you never know when it will come in handy, and last but certainly not least, you will be practicing with your new swords as well."

Naruto was excited about the prospects of everything that Hiashi had told him but he was still slightly confused, what was the other surprise? He had to know, the suspense was killing him.

"Uncle Hiashi what was the second surprise?"

"Oh I forgot to mention that didn't I?"

Naruto nodded. Hiashi continued, "The Hokage and I have decided that as long as your clones spend a decent amount of time working on the areas that I tell them to, we will allow them to have free reign of the clan archives to learn whatever they want, the only condition is that they must bring it to me first so that I can decide if it is too dangerous for you at your current skill level. And Hinata may join you whenever you are there in person, I will have no problem with her learning whatever skills she wishes as long as her grades remain high and she doesn't endanger herself in the training. That being said, you cannot teach her the shadow clone jutsu, at least not until I determine her chakra level to be high enough for it to be safe. Now are you ready to learn how to make a shadow clone?"

Naruto nodded, "Yes uncle, I know that I am ready for this challenge, I was born ready."

* * *

Naruto soon found out that he truly did have a talent for seal making. He not only was able to master basic seals within the first month and a half, but he also began to experiment with creating his own seals. His first attempt at creating his own seal went rather well, of course the seal wasn't completely original so the chances of it not succeeding were minimal. But the very fact that he was able to modify an existing seal to suit his needs was all the proof that Hiashi needed of his future skill level. The seal he had created was a variation of a chakra seal, it was basically a chakra battery that could bolster the supply of someone who does not have incredibly high chakra levels. He had yet to find a use for it, but he knew that there was one so he always carried at least two or three with him, just in case he needed one at some point in the future. His other endeavors weren't quite so successful as his seal training. He had found out very quickly that the tiger hook swords were not easy weapons to handle, the forms that he was learning were more akin to dancing than any form of combat that he had ever seen. The same went for the deer horn knives as well, for some reason Hinata took to them like a duck to water while Naruto's progress could only be described as an elephant trying to do ballet on an ice rink. He didn't understand why all of it was so hard for him, he knew that he wanted to become a great shinobi but he couldn't see how the training that Sakusei-sensei was giving him would help at all. What good was meditating and learning to move like a dancer when all he wanted to do was fight? He would never be able to use either of those skills in battle, and he was very quickly getting bored. Six months into his training he had begun searching for a way to speed up his training, as far as he could tell there were none available. Over the next few months he had tried various ways that he thought would work, but each had backfired in some way. On top of that he had been expressly forbidden to use shadow clones in his sword training as anything other than sparring partners. Now, almost a year after he had started training with Heiwa Sakusei, Naruto was getting fed up with his lack of progress, but he wouldn't show it to anyone, every time he fell down he would pick himself up and try again. His determination astonished everyone around him, even the one that nobody realized was there.

* * *

Fugaku Uchiha was a very happy man at the moment. Soon his plans against the demon brat would come to fruition and he would be rid of the brat forever. He didn't have as much support as he would like from the other clans, but there was enough that he could go through with his scheme while being reasonably sure that he would suffer no repercussions from it. And just to be sure that nothing went wrong with the plan, he would execute it himself. He looked up at the clock in anticipation, soon it would be time and the trap would spring closed catching the one for whom the bell tolled without him ever suspecting that he was in danger at all.

* * *

_'I have a bad feeling about this'_ Hiashi thought as he walked into the council room.

'_it's rare enough to call a full council meeting without at least a weeks notice, but to request that I bring Hizashi as well? That's just unheard of'_

they sat down in their assigned seats and the meeting began. But something was off, Itachi was here instead of Fugaku, sure he was the heir but there was no plausible reason why Fugaku would allow him to take his place at a full council meeting. Those same thoughts were running through Itachi's head as he sat in his chair calmly awaiting the start of the meeting, his suspicions were confirmed when the Hokage stood up to address the council.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this meeting has been called to discuss a motion put forward by the Uchiha, Daisheki, and Mitsuhida clans in regards to the continuing existence of Naruto Uzumaki. This motion calls for either the immediate termination of the life of an innocent child or his immediate transfer to ANBU Root division for training."

Needless to say Hiashi was only slightly angry at this groundless and cowardly attack on the boy that he had helped raise and who he hoped to one day call his son-in-law. Scratch that, Hiashi was completely and utterly pissed off at what the opposition was trying to do, even if it would never work. He rose from his chair to say something along those lines but was beaten to the punch by none other than Itachi Uchiha.

"Hokage-sama, since I am not the true clan head I wish to abstain from voting on this matter and withdraw my clan's support from this motion until such time as my father once again retakes his duties." that was certainly surprising but what Itachi said next was on another level altogether. "i also respectfully request permission to be excused from these proceedings since I am no longer involved in them. I will locate my clan head and send him to this meeting so as to make the true stance of the Uchiha clan known." Having received the Hokage's permission, Itachi hurried towards the door of the conference room, he could only hope that he wasn't too late to save Naruto from certain death.

**A/N: the reason it is so short is because it just seemed like a good place to end it. plus there is trouble brewing for naruto and such a major thing deserves it's own chapter.**


	9. attack on the innocent

**Here you go, sorry it took 2 weeks to write but I'm not very good at writing fight scenes so i had to get creative.**

**Disclaimer: i don't own naruto **

**Can someone let me know if they think i need to change the rating after this chapter? i kept the violence and swearing toned down as far as possible considering the situation, but there is one paragraph that may be a little graphic for my rating of (K+) thanks.**

They had no warning, no hint of anything amiss on that beautiful day in Konoha. The first indication that something was wrong came when the door of the main house suddenly exploded inward revealing the rather menacing figure of Fugaku Uchiha in full battle dress. Hinali was in the backyard of the main house, watching Hinata and Naruto enjoy their Saturday as regular children should, free of any cares in the world. Sadly, today would not turn out that way in the end. Hinali heard a sound from the front of the house and could hear the branch family guards trying to stop an intruder from entering, quite unsuccessfully from the sound of it. She turned to the children.

"Hinata, Naruto, hide right now! And no matter what you hear do not come out. I mean it!"

Hinata was worried. "Mom what's wrong?"

Hinali didn't want to worry them any more than necessary but she needed to impress upon them the severity of this situation.

"Somebody is attacking us for some reason. And I need to stop them."

"But why don't we just run and let the guards handle it?"

"No Hinata I don't think they can. And running away from someone who has managed to get this deep into our compound won't do any good, and they've probably planned for that anyways. The only way for you two to stay safe is to hide while I distract the attacker long enough for help to come."

"But you'll get hurt!"

Hinali knelt down to her daughters level and gave her a hug. "I have to do this Hinata, I love you two more than life itself and I can't sit idly by while you are in danger. I would rather die protecting you than live knowing that I could have done something to prevent whatever is about to happen. Now hide in the trees while I do my motherly duty." after she said this she pushed them into the small forest that bordered the yard If I don't make it back, then use the escape tunnel to go find help."

She looked back to the house where the unknown attacker seemed to be finishing up his fight with the guards. Luckily, or unluckily as the case may be, this attack was taking place at a shift change. Not very many guards would die in the attack, but fewer guards to fight meant that the attacker didn't have to waste as much energy getting through to his objective.

The silence coming from the house indicated that the man was finished with the guards and would be coming to find them soon. Hinali calmly walked towards the house to face their attacker head on. She was shocked when she saw that it was none other than Fugaku Uchiha.

"Why are you doing this Fugaku?" she asked hesitantly, already guessing that he wanted Naruto but not wanting to believe it.

"You Hyugas have been protecting the Kyubi brat for too long, I'm just doing something about it. Nobody else has the courage to go against the vaunted Hyuga clan for fear of your supposed power. It sickens me, as if you weaklings could actually pose a threat to an _Uchiha. _We are the true power in this village, and it's time that you peasants learned your place." he said arrogantly.

Hinali shook her head sadly. "If only you could hear the stupidity and arrogance in that statement. But since you don't seem to know what humility is, I guess I'll just have to teach it to you!" she said as she got into her gentle fist stance. She was nowhere near as good as Hiashi in a fight, but she hoped that it wouldn't matter. All she needed to do was hold him off until help arrived, if it ever did.

"I'll never let you hurt any of my children!" she shouted as she charged.

* * *

Itachi ran across the rooftops of the village as fast as his chakra enhanced muscles would carry him. He had suspected that his father was planning on getting rid of Naruto but he had thought that he would have more time to find a way to stop him. Now instead of circumventing his father's plans he would have to stop them himself, not an easy task in the slightest. His father was still more powerful than him at the moment, and Itachi had no plan to get around that small fact. But there was nothing he could do about it except hope that he got there in time to do something other than watch his father kill one of the most inspiring people he had ever known.

* * *

Hinali was thrown back for the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes. She was no match for this master of the sharingan and she knew it. But still she got up yet again to face him, her children were depending on her now and she couldn't fail them.

"Why don't you just stay down? It's obvious that you can't win, so just sit over on the side like a good little tramp and wait for me to finish with the demon. I promise to come back and finish this after I'm done with him." Fugaku taunted.

"I'll never let you near them! Not while I still draw breath!" she shouted back.

"As you wish you insignificant speck." he said before pulling out a kunai and charging again. This time he made no pretenses as to what he was going to do, he simply ran in and stabbed her in the stomach before she could even react. Hinali collapsed on the ground, unable to stand any longer.

"Don't you go anywhere now. I'm not done with you yet. By my estimates you have about fifteen minutes left before that wound is irreversible and maybe three after that before you finally die. Don't worry, after I finish the brats I'll be sure to come back to you and make your last few minutes enjoyable, at least for me. When I'm done with you, you really will be a whore and a tramp, I'll just be performing a mercy killing after that." he said snidely before moving off to look for Naruto and Hinata. "Can the demon come out to play?" he asked in a sadistic tone. He turned to see a figure emerging from the trees, "So that's the way you want play it?"

* * *

Hinata was terrified. Her mother had just been brutally beaten and stabbed right before her eyes, and now the evil man was taunting them, calling Naruto a demon. She knew that he was talking about Naruto, she had heard similar mutterings in the village from passerby while she was out walking with Naruto, but never when she was alone. Hinata had always wanted to know why the village seemed to hate Naruto for no reason whatsoever. But now wasn't the time to dwell on such things, now was the time to protect her most precious person in the world. Nobody was going to hurt her Naru-kun when she had something to say about it. She reached into the inner lining of her jacket and pulled out her deer horn knives from their special sheath sewed into it. Then she gathered her courage and slowly stepped from her hiding place to face the man attacking her best friend.

* * *

Fugaku was amazed, the weakling had come out of hiding to face him rather than running away as he had assumed that she would. "So that's the way you want to play it?" he shouted at the forest, "Sending a weakling out to fight your battles for you? So be it! Anyone who tries to protect a demon deserves to die." he said smugly. He noticed the interesting weapons she carried with her, but didn't think much of them. Nothing could stand up to the might of the Uchiha, certainly not such a weak weapon as he saw before him. All the same he pulled out two kunai to match her weapons and defend against them. "Your weapons will be of no help to you here. I'll finish you off even faster than I did your mother, and then the demon brat will die." he said smugly.

"I will not let you hurt Naru-chan!" Hinata shouted at him before charging headlong into the fray.

* * *

Naruto was amazed at what Hinata was doing. He was sure that she was terrified at the moment but for some reason that didn't stop her. And if it didn't stop her then he wouldn't let it stop him either. He crossed his arms and poured chakra into the storage seals disguised as Uzumaki clan symbols that were situated on both biceps. As if by magic his tiger hook swords appeared in his hands, ready for action. Naruto knew that if any weapon was capable of outsmarting the sharingan it would be the tiger hook swords. He waited for the opportune moment before charging into the fray just as Hinata had only seconds earlier. As Naruto charged into the fight he silently prayed that both of them working together would be enough to deal with this man. His prayers were answered....sort of.

* * *

Itachi reached the Hyuga compound at that moment and saw the damage for himself. The entire front courtyard was demolished, guards laying strewn about the area as if tossed there by a careless child. Itachi wanted to stop and check to see if they were OK but he still had to save Naruto from his fate before he could even think of getting distracted by the injured. He walked up to the destroyed entryway and was greeted by a sight similar to the one outside, the signs of battle were evident as he hurried through the house following the sound of weapons clashing together in battle. The sound led him to the backyard where he could see Naruto and Hinata engaging his father with the strangest weapons he had ever seen. Despite their strangeness Itachi could tell just from watching that the weapons were extremely deadly when used correctly. Unfortunately, Hinata and Naruto were nowhere near the skill level where that lethality could occur, the most they could do was defend against Fugaku's attacks and possibly keep him from injuring them too badly.

As Itachi was admiring the weapons and searching for the correct time to intervene in the battle he saw Naruto make a mistake. It wasn't a big mistake and in a normal situation against a normal opponent it wouldn't matter. But sadly, his opponent was not a normal Shinobi and this was far from a normal situation, since Fugaku had the sharingan he was able to see the mistake and capitalize on it to break down Naruto's defenses. As soon as that happened Fugaku struck out with his kunai and gave Naruto the same wound he had given Hinali not five minutes earlier. Naruto was thrown back to the tree line and lay there unmoving as Fugaku approached him, ready to strike the killing blow. Before he reached the young boy however Hinata jumped in between them and assumed a defensive stance with her weapons. Itachi knew that now was the time to act if he wanted to save Naruto and Hinata and at least give Hinali a fighting chance at survival. He began to move....

* * *

Hiashi was nervous. He somehow knew instinctively that his family was under attack. And Itachi's hasty departure several minutes ago only served to confirm his feelings. But he knew that Itachi was most likely on his side and would stop whatever disaster was trying to beset his family. The boy had, after all, been observing his 'nephew' for nearly a year, if not longer than that. Observing someone like Naruto for such a long time could change a man, almost as much as personal interaction with the blond enigma could. Hiashi knew he had to trust Itachi to do the right thing, and besides, somebody had to keep the council busy to avoid their interference on the side of the attacker. And someone also had to prevent that damned motion from passing through the council, if there wasn't someone in the room actively looking out for Naruto's best interests then the thing might just pass. There would be nothing the Hokage could really do, Naruto wasn't a ninja yet and as such came under civilian control for the time being. The sooner that kid became a ninja the better, then at least the Hokage could protect him as a military asset. Hiashi sighed and sat back as Danzo Daisheki the head of the not so secret ROOT division tried to argue once again for turning Naruto into an emotionless tool that would only be loyal to him, as if anybody would be stupid enough to believe his bold faced lies. On second thought, Hiashi could see several council members nodding their heads in agreement, all civilians of course, but he still couldn't see how could they be stupid enough to fall for the obvious plot by Danzo (or Dastardly DeeDee as he was known behind his back). No, Hiashi had to stay, if only to stop the rampant idiocy of the civilian half of the council from possibly killing Naruto and ruining all of his plans in the process. He would just have to trust Itachi and hope that he got there in time to stop the attack, or at the very least preventing it's success. He looked at Hizashi and they exchanged a mutual nod, confirming their mutual decision to allow Itachi to handle this. The very fact that he had allowed them to know that he was spying on them was enough to warrant this trust. His skill level was so high that even the byakugan couldn't see him unless he allowed it to. Hiashi sighed and cast his vote to stop Danzo's proposal. He could tell that this was going to be a long meeting.

* * *

Hinata had no idea what she was doing. She had seen Naruto get hurt and saw Fugaku move to finish him off, and then suddenly she was in between the two, stopping his progress.

She took a deep breath and declared in a voice that sounded much more confident than she felt. "I won't let you hurt him. I don't care what you do to me but you aren't going to lay another hand on my Naru-chan."

Fugaku laughed evilly. "As if you could stop me child! You are nothing more than a hindrance, getting in the way of everyone and never helping things in the slightest."

Hinata seemed to shrink at his words, feeling her confidence eroding away with each syllable.

Just when she was at her lowest point she heard another voice in the yard.

"It would be unwise to continue this course of action Father." Itachi said as he stepped out of the house. "She may not be able to stop you but I certainly can. And I will if you do not give up this foolish plan of yours. There is no way that you can get to Naruto before I take you down."

Fugaku sneered, "I should have known that you would betray me like this Itachi. Your sense of duty has been skewed by this village's weak morals. No matter, I'll deal with you first, then I'll take care of the brats. Not even you can beat an _Uchiha_, traitor."

Itachi just looked at him with a calm expression on his face. "Father you forget that I _am_ an Uchiha, besides that I am also a prodigy, or did you forget the very words you have been saying since I was six?"

Fugaku sneered, "I didn't forget, and I also neglected to teach you everything I know, right now you are still weaker than me!" He stopped the slow circle that they had been making throughout their conversation and attacked directly, hoping to take Itachi by surprise. It didn't work. He jumped back and tried another tactic. He turned towards the two children who were watching their fight in awe and did the most despicable thing imaginable: "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu!" He shot the fireball straight at the defenseless children who had no time to react. Seeing this, Itachi jumped in front of them and shielded them with his chakra so that they wouldn't get hurt. Doing this sacrificed the protection that the shield technique would give him, and he was blown back, hitting a tree with enough force to knock him senseless. Seeing this Fugaku let out a triumphant laugh before advancing on the defenseless children once again. Regaining consciousness Itachi could see his father advancing on Naruto and Hinata's position. In a flash he was standing in front of Fugaku once again, his sharingan eyes spinning to take on a new form: that of the Mangekyo Sharingan. Fugaku was amazed, "How? How is this possible?" Itachi answered, "I do not know father, but I will find out, unfortunately you will not be around to benefit from this discovery... Tsukuyomi!" and with that Fugaku was sucked into the most powerful genjutsu he had ever experienced.

* * *

(inside the tsukuyomi)

"Where..where am I?" Fugaku asked tentatively, all traces of arrogance now gone.

"Welcome to the world of tsukuyomi father. Here, I am in control of everything. I control how you live, die, and suffer. You will experience all of the suffering that you have inflicted on Naruto and his family before I kill you in the most painful way possible and then bring you back to start the process over again. We have three days. There is much to do, let us begin now." As soon as Itachi said that the faces of the villagers appeared sneering at him, taunting him, glaring at him, doing everything possible to make his life a living hell for what seemed like years before Itachi reappeared and stabbed him in the stomach, spilling the acid it contained into his body. He screamed as the acid from his stomach began to eat him from the inside out. After what seemed like an eternity of excruciating pain he mercifully succumbed to the darkness, gladly accepting death over the torture he had been experiencing. He woke up tied to a stake, Itachi appeared before him. "You have 2 days 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds remaining."

* * *

Outside of the genjutsu only a few seconds had passed, while inside it had been three days of torture for Fugaku. When Itachi brought him out of it, the man simply collapsed. Seeing this, Itachi visibly relaxed before going to see what he could do for the injured Naruto and Hinali. He went to Naruto first, but the kid waved him off. "I'll be fine, it's just a flesh wound. Go look at Aunt Hinali she's a lot worse off."

Itachi did as he was told and sighed when he finished his examination. The situation was not good. Hinali had internal bleeding and her stomach had been punctured, causing the acid contained within to leak out into the surrounding tissues. For the moment she could be saved, if someone performed a healing jutsu immediately. Unfortunately, while Itachi knew the required jutsu he didn't have the chakra that would be required for it to work. He looked apologetically to the two children. "I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do for her, I just don't have enough chakra left for the medical jutsu she needs." Naruto looked thoughtful. "What if you did?" He asked. "I mean what if you could magically obtain enough chakra to do the jutsu? Could you save her?"

Itachi looked confused. "Yes, but I don't see how that's possible." Naruto tossed him a packet of seals. "Those are chakra batteries, use them to power the jutsu to save Aunt Hinali."

Itachi nodded. "Very well then, stand back you two." they did so and Itachi wrapped one battery around each of his wrists before activating the jutsu.

Twenty minutes later Hinali was stable and no longer in any danger of dying. Itachi had drained four of the chakra batteries and severely depleted his own chakra but finally Hinali Hyuga was going to be fine. As long as she got to a medic nin in the next several hours of course. But at least she wasn't in danger of dying at the moment. Itachi walked over to the comatose Fugaku and tied him up for later transport to the ANBU lockup, before sitting down with the children to wait for Hiashi and Hizashi to come back. He didn't think it would take long considering that the only reason the proposals against Naruto were even heard was because it was the Uchiha clan making them. Without that support the proposals would most definitely fail, and very quickly too. He was right. Not ten minutes later Hiashi and Hizashi appeared extremely out of breath from running across town to reach the clan compound faster. They didn't seem surprised with the condition of the place, they were more worried about the victims of the attack than the property anyways. After checking to be sure that the guards were still alive (they were, Fugaku only wanted Naruto, so he incapacitated rather than killed the guards). They picked up Hinali and rushed her to the hospital for treatment and to send medic nins to pick up the rest of the wounded.

**A/N: well that was certainly a stressful chapter wasn't it? Don't worry about the loose ends that i left open. I'll tie them off in the next chapter before continuing on. I'm pretty sure that i'm the first person to theorize that mangekyo sharingan can be obtained in the way itachi has in this story. 10 points to whoever can guess exactly where i am going with it. unfortunately like everything else on this site everything is made up and the points don't matter (just like _Whose Line Is It Anyway?_). since the next chapter is more my style of writing i'm pretty sure that i can get it out quicker than i did this one. but i make no promises on that fact, i am after all a victim of C_ollege Scheduleitis_ (as I've come to call my lack of inordinate amounts of free time) so my time is budgeted very carefully. And by that i mean that i have no organization whatsoever so i'm basically screwed. **


	10. Itachi's clan

**i know that the first paragraph might anger some people, but if it does make you angry then just keep reading! I can almost guarantee that you will not be quite so mad at me by the end of this chapter. And if you are still mad at me by the end of this chapter....there's nothing i can do about it.**

** congratulations to _kk the prophet_**** for figuring out half of the answer, they got the event and circumstances correct but the true reason was a little more.... complicated than just an event. the reasons go deeper than most people tend to go. read on if you want to find out why itachi got the mangekyo sharingan as well as my reasoning as to exactly how i think the sharingan works. and yes i know that certain things in canon may make my reasoning false but this is a fanfic for a reason and as such it is not canon and ****_i do not own naruto._**

Itachi sighed as he finished unpacking the last of his belongings, he had been disowned by his clan after they found out that he had fought Fugaku in order to protect Naruto. Oh well, at least he was away from the arrogance of the idiotic Uchiha clan and their false sense of superiority. Of course being disowned technically meant that he could no longer go by the name Uchiha, but he didn't care, too much arrogance and pride was wrapped up in that name for him to continue using it. His only regret was that he would no longer be able to see Sasuke on a regular basis, and no doubt his scheming and conniving uncle (who had replaced the still comatose Fugaku as clan head) would poison Sasuke's mind against his brother. At least the Hyuga clan had agreed to help him out for the time being, even going so far as to grant him a small house on the outskirts of their compound as a thank you for saving the wife and daughter of their clan head. Itachi sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, there was no way that he could continue on as an Uchiha, thus he would need a new name... he would no longer be Itachi Uchiha, from this day forth he would be known as Itachi Mamoru. Yes that had a nice ring to it, and what better way to state his new purpose in life than with his new clan name? After all his entire reason for existence is now to defend Konoha and it's allies, as it should have been all along, so his new name should reflect that (_mamoru _literally means _defend). 'And now to see the Hokage to figure out exactly why my sharingan mutated, there are no recorded instances of this ever happening to another sharingan user. Perhaps he will have a theory once I explain the entire situation to him.' _ Itachi thought as he headed out the door. The Hokage was certainly in for an interesting afternoon.

* * *

The Hokage was just finishing up some paperwork when Itachi knocked on his door, he looked up and smiled, already knowing who it was. "Come in Itachi, I've been expecting you."

Itachi opened the door looking puzzled. "How did you know I would come here Hokage-sama?" he asked, "I only just now decided to come see you."

the old Hokage smiled. "I've been waiting for you to come here since I heard of your clan's actions concerning your defense of Naruto and his family. When you get to be as old as I am you tend to learn how to predict what people will do in any given situation, that foresight is what has kept me alive and in power for so many years. Though I fear I won't be able to do this much longer. Now, what is it that you wanted to discuss with me? Would it be a legal emancipation from your clan perhaps?"

Itachi was surprised, that was exactly what he wanted, but there was more to it than that. Itachi cleared his throat before speaking. "You are correct Hokage-sama, I do wish for a legal emancipation from my clan, but that is not all that I need. I also wish your council in a matter of grave importance. It is so important that I must insist that you activate the S-class privacy seals that you have hidden within the walls."

the Hokage reached under his desk and poured some chakra into the activation seal hidden there. He looked at Itachi with a stern expression on his face, "Very well, the seals are activated, now what is it you wish to discuss that is so important as to require privacy seals?"

The look that the Hokage was giving him would have turned a lesser man into a whimpering shell of fear, thankfully Itachi was not a lesser man so he returned the look with an impassive expression on his face. "It concerns the mangekyo sharingan," he said evenly. The new expression on the Hokage's face could only be described as a mixture of shock and fear with a pinch of awe thrown in for good measure. It would almost be humorous if the situation and subject they were discussing had been any less serious. Itachi braced himself before continuing, "I know that you have heard of it but I am certain that you know almost nothing about the ability itself. After all, it is one of my old clan's most closely guarded secrets, the very knowledge of how to obtain it could very well destroy the entire clan." Having impressed upon the Hokage just how important the need for secrecy was in this matter he pressed on with his explanation. He told the Hokage everything he and his former clan knew of the mangekyo sharingan, including: it's abilities, it's weaknesses, the consequences of its use, and last but not least the only known way of obtaining it. As Itachi spoke the Hokage's look of fear only deepened until, by the end of his explanation, it became a look of horror and absolute disgust. This of course was due to the dark nature of the power and the fact that in order to obtain the mangekyo one had to kill their best friend, something so evil that not even the most power hungry Uchiha would dare to attempt it. Itachi finished off his explanation by saying, "All of that leads me to the real reason why I have come here today...somehow I have obtained the mangekyo sharingan." the look on Sarutobi's face was almost priceless. Itachi continued, "I don't know how or why it happened but I do know when. It was while I was trying to stop my father from killing Naruto and Hinata. He tried to hit them with a grand fireball jutsu while I was fighting him. I jumped in front of it and shielded them with my chakra even though it weakened my own defense against the attack. I was blown back into a tree and knocked unconscious for several seconds, when I woke up I had the mangekyo sharingan, and the power to stop my father. But I have no idea why, what do you think happened Hokage-sama?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third Hokage, known to all the world as the professor and one of the greatest ninja the world had ever seen, was nearly stumped by this seemingly simple problem given to him by a mere teenager. He was silent for a very long time, but Itachi could see his brain working, examining the situation from every angle, running through every possible scenario, and finally double checking his conclusion once he had reached it. After what seemed like an eternity to Itachi, but was in actuality about 15 minutes, Sarutobi spoke, informing Itachi of one of the most surprising explanations the old Hokage had ever heard let alone come up with himself. He began with a simple question. "Have the Uchiha ever examined the exact cause of the mutation other than the requirement of killing your best friend?"

"No, most Uchiha really don't care how the sharingan works, so they never really studied it's various forms in any great detail other than what actions are needed to obtain them." Itachi answered truthfully.

The Hokage looked thoughtful for a second before continuing on with his explanation. "That definitely sounds like a course of action worthy of the Uchiha clan, accepting the power without knowing the cause and believe it is your birthright." He said in disgust before looking Itachi straight in the eye."I believe I know the cause of your sharingan's change and why there are no recorded instances of it happening before. I'll start with the cause. I believe that the cause of the sharingan's development is strictly tied to the emotions of the user." Itachi looked surprised, the old man continued without pausing.

"Think about it Itachi, the only way for a young Uchiha to activate their sharingan in the first place is to be placed in a situation of great emotional duress, such as a life threatening situation. And now, from what you have told me, the only previously known way to activate the mangekyo form of the sharingan is to kill your best friend, an action that causes great emotional distress in the form of overwhelming grief. It seems to me that the sharingan's abilities are tied up in negative emotions, or at least they used to be. My theory is that an equally strong positive emotion experienced by the user could be enough to activate a sharingan in much the same way as those negative emotions have been proven to do. Since the strongest positive emotion is love, it would seem that you showed a love so powerful that it could override the negative aspects of the sharingan and the negative emotions that they are tied to. In fact I believe that I know the exact moment that this happened. It was once said that _'there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends'_, this statement seems to have proven true for you."

Itachi looked ready to object to that statement so Sarutobi clarified what he meant. "You may not actually be friends with Naruto, Hinali, and Hinata; but you felt strongly enough about them to rush to their defense when you realized that they were in danger. Once there you proceeded to fight your father, who was more powerful than you, without regard for your own life. When he tried to pull an underhanded attack on them you jumped in front of them, effectively sacrificing your life for theirs. This disregard for your own life showed a love so strong that it activated your mangekyo sharingan, which gave you a large enough boost in power that your attempt to sacrifice yourself became unsuccessful and you were able to defeat your father with your new abilities that were unlocked."

Itachi looked surprised at the relative simplicity of this explanation, it was a wonder that nobody had discovered this before! Of course the sharingan existed solely in the Uchiha clan, one of the most selfish clans in Konoha if not the entire world. Maybe it wasn't so hard to believe that this power had gone undiscovered for so long. But the Hokage wasn't done surprising him yet, his next sentences were just as shocking.

"It seems to me that the unorthodox way that you developed the mangekyo sharingan may in fact exempt you from the consequences of using it. I have surmised that the way in which all other Uchihas have obtained the mangekyo were perversions of the real way in which it was meant to be obtained, the way that you actually did. Their methods resulted in an incomplete transformation, which damaged the eyes each time they were used, which in turn resulted in blindness after continual use. If I am right, and I usually am, then you are the first sharingan user in history to obtain a complete mangekyo sharingan which may or may not result in you being able to use all of the known abilities of said dojutsu without any negative effects other than the occasional case of chakra exhaustion. Only time will tell if you can pass this purified form of the sharingan on to your children, but I suspect that you can at least in part, they will probably have to obtain the mangekyo form for themselves but I surmise that you have succeeded in purifying the sharingan completely of it's negative attributes. And to think that the elders of your clan banished you for that, I love a good case of irony."

Itachi was amazed, he hadn't expected to get the answers to nearly every single question that he had regarding his new form of dojutsu. But he had other questions as well. "Hokage-sama, about changing my name..." The Hokage held up a hand to stop him.

"That has already been taken care of, I filled out the paperwork before you arrived in anticipation of your request. But considering the information that you have revealed to me regarding your sharingan I am inclined to grant you more than just a name change. It seems that you have developed techniques unique enough that I can allow you to create your own minor ninja clan, and there's nothing that the Uchiha can do about it since they did banish and disown you. We may even go so far as to classify you as the progenitor of a new dojutsu, but that will have to wait until you have children and we see whether or not the original sharingan is changed in your descendants."

Now it was Itachi's turn to hold up his hand for silence. "Hokage-sama, I believe that I can settle at least part of that question right now." Having said that he closed his eyes and activated his sharingan. When he opened his eyes the Hokage could scarcely believe what he saw there. In Itachi's eyes was a sharingan never before seen, it was gold instead of red and had four tomoes surrounding the pupil, whereas the sharingan could only have three. Truly this was a new form of the sharingan. As far as the Hokage was concerned the Uchiha clan was full of idiots for getting rid of Itachi simply because he decided to develop a sense of morality and duty.

"Well that settles it, we don't know whether or not your sharingan has changed enough to classify it as a new dojutsu yet, but this change certainly does qualify you to start a new clan and run it as you see fit. All I need is a name and I can start the paperwork immediately, and since you already have the Hyugas as your allies I see no way that your enemies can block you from being on the council. Now, what name would you like for your new clan?"

Itachi looked the man straight in the eye and answered him without hesitation, "My new family shall be known as the Mamoru clan."

The Hokage smiled. "The Mamoru clan eh? A fitting name considering how your new clan was started. Very well, from this day forth you will be known as Itachi Mamoru, head of the Mamoru clan. It has a nice ring to it don't you think?"

Itachi smiled for the first time as he stood up to leave. "Yes Hokage-sama, I believe it does. Now if we are finished I fear that I must take my leave of you, I need to inform the Hyuga clan head of this new development so that we can prepare for the next council meeting. Thank-you and good day." Itachi bowed before shunshinning away. The Hokage sighed, why did all ninja feel the need to leave in such a fashion? He never could discover the answer to that question. Knowing the futility of even attempting to ponder that question, he instead got to work on creating Itachi's new clan. He opened his desk and withdrew the paperwork required for the starting of a new clan. As he began to fill it out his mind began to wander, his hands writing of their own accord, he had held this job so long that he didn't even need to see the paper to know what he was writing. '_Itachi Mamoru_, he mused, _perhaps you would be a good successor for me. Nobody else has proven worthy, and any who comes even remotely close will not protect Naruto as he needs them to. But you have already proven more than capable for that task. Perhaps I can retire sooner than expected'._ By the time he had finished the last form the old worn out Hokage had made his decision. Itachi Mamoru would soon be the Godaime Hokage, and Naruto's newest protector on the council.

**Side Note: fugaku hasn't woken up from his coma yet, he keeps reliving the genjutsu over and over again in his mind because of how powerful it was. How's that for bad luck? Something like that could ruin your whole day. If he ever does wake up i doubt he'll be very happy with how things have changed.**

**A/N: how's that for consequences eh? the uchiha have succeeded in getting rid of one of their greatest ninja who has just succeeded in raising his sharingan to a level never before thought possible. and in doing that they have unintentionally just created a rival clan of sharingan users as well! In less than a week the uchiha have lost their clan head, their greatest ninja, much of their respect within the village, and their position of power on the council (who besides danzo would support them after what fugaku just did?). And now they have lost the only thing that they can't get back, their position and notoriety as the only clan of sharingan users, do you think that the civilians will tolerate the uchiha superiority complex when there is now a clan with the sharingan that doesn't think that they are superior to everyone on earth? I seriously doubt it. Of course true to form the Uchiha won't see this as their fault, even though they directly caused all of it, no they'll find somebody to blame. Who do you think it'll be? Naruto of course, and by extension the Hyuga clan and Itachi too.**


	11. the truth revealed

**You know that guy who told you that I don't own Naruto? Well he was telling the truth. I really don't own it.**

_Naruto was standing at the end of the aisle waiting for her to come through the double doors there. He was standing next to a line of men dressed in matching formal kimonos at the front of what appeared to be a chapel. _

_"Are you nervous little brother?" Neji asked from his position immediately to his right._

_ "Of course I am Neji, why wouldn't I be? I'm about to marry the woman of my dreams who just happens to be my best friend." Naruto answered him. _

_"Naruto-san what do you have to be worried about? She loves you just as much as you love her, if not more. I am sure that you two will be very happy together. after all you two make a very _Youthful_ couple." Said an unfamiliar man standing next to Neji._

_ For some reason he was wearing a hideous green spandex suit underneath his kimono, causing his clothes to clash hideously, not that the man seemed to care. _

_"It's not that Lee," Naruto said, trying for all the world to remain calm even in his nervous state, and failing miserably I might add, "I know that we love each other and all, but what if I'm making a mistake? What if she gets hurt because of me? You know how many enemies I have, I could never forgive myself if she were to get hurt because of me." Naruto replied. _

_From his other side came an answer to his statement. "Naruto we've been over this already, she doesn't care about any of that. She is willing to be in danger so long as she is allowed to stay by your side. That's why she has pushed herself so hard over the years, she wants to be the one who watches your back and helps you through all of the struggles and the pain in your future. So shut up and get married already, she's been dreaming about this for years and if you mess it up because you're scared she'll get hurt...let's just say that no amount of unnatural healing ability will save you from my wrath." The woman said, she looked an awful lot like that Sakura girl that always seemed to be hanging around Hinata at the academy. _

_Over to his right the man in the clashing kimono / spandex combo, Lee, shuddered a little bit as if to prove her point._ _Just then the double doors at the other end of the chapel opened to reveal the woman he was supposedly marrying, it was...Hinata? Naruto's jaw dropped and he began to stare unashamedly as soon as he saw her. __She looked resplendent in her formal wedding kimono. It was pure white with a lavender floral pattern above her waist that matched her eyes perfectly. He watched her as she walked down the aisle, entranced by her amazing beauty, and wondering at the fact that she had chosen him above all others. He still had a hard time believing it, but he knew that it was true. As she neared him they stared at each other as if wondering when they would wake up from this dream that seemed too good to be true. When she reached the top of the aisle she looked at him in concern and asked, "Naruto? Are you okay? Naruto what's wrong?" he could feel himself being torn away from this beautiful scene as she looked at him in concern. Apparently this really was too good to be true._

"_Naruto!!!!!"_

_

* * *

_

Naruto woke with a start to find himself lying on a bed in Konoha hospital. He felt a slight pressure on his chest and raised his head to look at the person using him as a pillow, it was Hinata, she was sitting in a chair leaning over him with her head on his chest. She looked as if she had been crying when she fell asleep. Naruto found himself marveling at how beautiful she was even now. She looked nothing like she had in the dreamworld, but she had been several years older in the dream than she was in real life. He suddenly realized just who it was he was looking at, this was Hinata, his best friend and the sister that he never had. He couldn't feel that way about her, could he? Sure he loved her, but wasn't it in a brother and sister kind of way? There was no way that he could see her in the way he did in that dream, no matter how real it seemed to be. Hinata stirred as she unconsciously noticed his change in breathing pattern. He then remembered why he was here, as soon as they had brought aunt Hinali to the hospital he had collapsed himself. Apparently his injuries were worse than he had originally thought, no matter how fast he usually healed a stomach wound was still a serious problem for him.

* * *

Hinata looked up to see him staring at her, she squeaked and sat up straight when she realized where she happened to be and exactly what her unusually comfortable pillow really was. She had been having a wonderful dream where she and Naruto were getting married when his sudden movement had woken her up. She didn't know what it meant but she liked the feeling she got whenever she thought about it. As far as she knew Hinata actually did love Naruto, but only as a brother, maybe it could be more though. After all no matter how much a sister loved a brother they wouldn't do what she had done when the bad man had attacked them, right? She was very confused about all of this and needed someone to explain it all to her. Maybe once her mother woke up she could ask her about it. Yes, that was what she would do, ask her mother, after all she knew just about everything.

* * *

Hiashi paused outside of Naruto's hospital room, he knew that the boy's wounds would be healed already, but he was still skeptical about subjecting the boy to what he was about to tell him. He knew that Naruto would be wondering exactly why Fugaku had attacked him and why the villagers were always glaring at him. There was no more time to waste by keeping him in the dark, each day that they waited to tell him was a day in which the risk of him finding out on his own increased ten fold. He took a deep breath and opened the door slowly, as if by doing so he could delay the inevitable confrontation that would ensue. When he entered he saw Naruto and Hinata in the most adorable situation he had ever seen, with her leaning against the bed with her head on his chest, asleep. It looked like a scene right out of one of the romantic comedies that are so popular with the female population of any town. He saw the entire scene play out right in front of him, but before Hinata could either faint or run away blindly, he cleared his throat to get their attention. Hinata's presence was crucial to containing Naruto's inevitable over reaction to his jinchūriki status.

Hiashi stepped forward hesitantly, "Naruto, I have something to tell you. It's very important so you must pay close attention. You too Hinata." both children nodded silently. "It concerns the reason why Fugaku Uchiha attacked you." If he didn't have Naruto's attention before, he certainly did now.

"You see Naruto there is something very special about you, and many in the village are scared of it and have overreacted in a negative way." Hiashi could tell that he was actually confusing Naruto even more with his attempt at explaining so he tried to put it in simpler terms.

"How about I make this simple... You two remember learning about the Kyuubi attack of nine years ago, right?" They both nodded, "well your teachers weren't entirely truthful about how the attack ended. You see, there is no known way to kill a demon aside from completely draining it's chakra. Since they are completely made up out of chakra and they just happen to be hundreds of meters tall...well you can see how close to impossible it would be to kill them in such a way. In fact the chances of killing a demon are so remote as to be nigh unto impossible to actually complete such an action." Naruto interrupted him, "Wait a minute, if it's so impossible to kill a demon then how did the fourth Hokage stop it if he didn't kill it?" Hiashi smiled sadly, the boy was beginning to understand.

"In order to halt the attack the fourth Hokage had to to the unthinkable, he was forced to sacrifice himself to seal the kyuubi into a newborn child."

Naruto interrupted again. "But what does that have to do with me and that weirdo's attack on us?"

Hiashi gave him a sad look. "I was just coming to that Naruto. You see, the fourth Hokage had hoped that the child in question would be seen as a hero by the people of Konoha and treated with dignity and honor befitting his sacrifice. But he knew that this wouldn't happen, he knew that people would let their fear override their better judgment when it came to this boy. Because of this the Hokage decided that he couldn't ask another family to give up their child to such a life of horror, pain, and suffering. He felt that as Hokage it was his duty and that of his son to bear this burden for Konoha. Because of his belief, he didn't use just any child to seal the kyuubi, he used his own son. And as much as it pains me to say this. He used you. Because you are the son of the fourth Hokage."

Naruto got a pained look in his eye. "So that means..."

Hiashi nodded gravely. "Yes, you are the secret child of the fourth Hokage, and the child whose body into which he sealed the chakra of the Kyuubi no kitsune, better known as the Kyuubi no yoko. Because of this you are a special kind of ninja known as a jinchūriki, that name literally means_ 'the power of human sacrifice' ._ Your kind has that name because that is exactly what you are: a living sacrifice created so that we could survive the attack of the most powerful creature on the planet. Everyday that you live is another day that we can survive in peace and prosperity. The villagers and that idiot Fugaku seem to have forgotten that fact. The biggest thing that you must realize about this entire situation is that your condition is a secret, both your status as a jinchūriki and your true identity as the heir of the fourth Hokage are classified as S-ranked information, that classification means that anyone caught telling others about it will be immediately arrested and charged with treason. Because of that, none of your peers will know about this unless you chose to tell them, which you do have the right to do since it is your secret. Do you have any questions now that you know?"

Naruto looked up at him, almost in tears. "So the attack was all my fault? I'm the reason that Hinata almost lost her mom? I'm the one responsible for Hinata almost getting killed?"

"**NO!**" Both Hiashi and Naruto looked at Hinata in surprise. She was standing up now, with her fists clenched in fury at Naruto's stupidity.

"None of this is your fault Naruto! If those idiots can't see you for what you are then it's their fault, not yours. If they're so blind that they can't see you the way that I see you then they need to get their brains checked."

Hiashi smiled at his eldest daughter, pride evident in his voice as he asked, "And how do you see him Hinata?"

She was taken aback at the question but her fury at the idiocy of the villagers overrode her inherent shyness when it came to her feelings for Naruto.

"I see an amazing boy who refuses to give up and never lets the idiots in the village get him down. I see a boy who is the kindest person I have ever met and can ever hope to meet. I see a boy who would do anything, even get hurt himself, to keep one of his precious people from harm. I see a boy who would brave any challenge overcome any obstacle and move any mountain if it would make one of his friends happy. I see someone who is the greatest person in the world, bar none. I see someone who I would do anything for. I see my best friend Naruto. That's what you always will be to me... you are my Naru-chan . Nothing will ever be able to change that, Not Ever! Don't you ever even think about it, cuz it's never gonna happen! I'm never gonna leave you. You hear me Naru-chan? Never!."

The boy in question looked amazed, not only at Hinata's outburst and ensuing tirade, but at exactly how she felt about him.

Hiashi was beaming in pride by now. "You see Naruto? It isn't your fault. None of this is. The blame rests solely on Fugaku Uchiha's shoulders, a fact which I will be sure to impress upon the council this afternoon as I ask for compensation for our clan, and for Itachi, since he did help us in our time of need. Now, I need you two to get some rest, Naruto is going to be released later on today, so I'll have Hizashi come by to pick him up later. Hinata, you can stay to keep him company, I don't think missing one day of the academy will hurt you at all. Have fun you two."

Having said all that he needed to say, Hiashi got up and left. He began to make his way to his wife's room, but just before he turned the corner he heard Naruto say, "Is that how you really feel Hina-hime?"

Hiashi smiled again as heard the beginning of her answer, "Yes Naru-chan, I really feel that way, I always have...." He passed out of hearing range before he heard any more of their conversation, but he didn't need to, he knew that Hinata would make sure that Naruto was alright. Now that she knew his biggest secret Hiashi was sure that Hinata would never let him out of her sight again,not if she could help it.

Hiashi smiled as he entered his wife's hospital room. She smiled back at him. "I take it the children reacted well to Naruto's condition?" She asked.

He continued smiling, "As well as can be expected," he answered, "Hinata even came out of her shell long enough to tell Naruto most of how she feels about him. I have a feeling that both of them will be coming to us soon with certain questions about relationships."

He sat down in the chair near her bed and picked up her hand in both of his. "But enough about them, I want to know how you're doing. Are they treating you well?"

Hinali smiled at his concerned tone. "As well as can be expected, considering my condition. You might want to be careful though Hiashi, someone might mistake your concerned tone and begin to suspect that you actually _Love_ me. It wouldn't do to have people believing that the almighty Hyuga clan head actually has feelings now, would it?"

Hiashi chuckled, Hinali always liked to tease him about the facade that he was forced to keep up around all but his closest friends and family.

"No I wouldn't want that, then they might begin to suspect that I was actually human at some point!" He said in a sarcastic tone.

"I'm sorry that I can't stay very long today my love, but I have to meet with the village council to get compensation from the Uchiha for the attack, and then there's the matter of rewarding Itachi for helping us and saving you."

Hinali smiled sadly. "I know you do Hiashi, and I understand. A clan head's duties are never finished, just think, some day you will be able to pass on the mantle to someone else and we can spend the rest of our lives relaxing. But until that day you have a job to do Hiashi-kun, so get to it."

Hiashi smiled as he prepared to leave, "I'll come back after the meeting to tell you how it went Hinali." He stood up and planted a kiss on her cheek. "I love you, my Hina-hime." He whispered in her ear.

As soon as he left her room his emotionless mask was back in place, nobody would ever suspect just how much he cared for his family. For now, he had some Uchiha to fry and compensation to obtain for their attack on his clan.

**A/N: i wasn't going to do it until later, but one of my constant reviewers made a good point about how pointless it was to keep the kyuubi secret from naruto any longer. If anyone else has any suggestions or ideas about how you would like this story to go feel free to tell me about them in a review. If i like the idea and depending on whether or not i can see a way to work it into the story then i will try to use it. But i will take your telling me about the idea as your permission to use it in the story. I will acknowledge you in an authors note if i use it. So thanks to Hektols for convincing me about revealing the kyuubi to naruto. I've already got one suggestion about a pairing for Itachi that i am seriously considering using as well, just as soon as i find a way to work it in.**


	12. the Uchiha's pay

**i don't own naruto, and if you think I do then a raccoon named jerry will jump in your window while you are sleeping and have a death match on your bed with the evil monkey who lives in your closet. Well maybe not but wouldn't it be funny if that really happened? what ever, just as long as you realize that i don't own naruto in any way shape or form.**

Hiashi Hyuga walked into the meeting twenty minutes late. He bowed low and said, "I humbly apologize for being late but I was at the hospital visiting my wife after she was injured in the recent attack on my clan and I lost track of time."

This was of course a lie, he had known exactly what time it was while he was at the hospital, but nobody could call him on it. His real reason for being late was so that he could give his excuse and in doing so remind the council that the attack hadn't only injured Naruto, and in fact had nearly claimed Hinali's life. They wouldn't be able to write off the attack now that they were officially aware of exactly who had been injured in it. The Hokage spoke up before anyone would have a chance to call his bluff.

"Considering the circumstances you will be forgiven this time, just don't make a habit of it."

Hiashi bowed again. "Thank-you Hokage-sama" He took his seat between the Aburame and Akimichi representatives.

Sarutobi got back to the business at hand. "Now that Hiashi has arrived we can begin. The first order of business will be the creation of a new clan within Konoha, the man has recently separated from his clan and has sufficiently demonstrated his own unique style which can be developed into numerous clan fighting techniques with the right support. But before he can join the council he will need a sponsorship from a clan in good standing with the council. Are there any volunteers?"

Already knowing whom it was that the Hokage was speaking of, Hiashi raised his hand at once. Next to him, Shibi Aburame raised his hand and asked, "Shouldn't we know who it is we are accepting before anyone agrees to sponsor him?"

The Hokage nodded and said, "Yes you should, I just wanted to be sure that we got the sponsorship out of the way first since the young man has a controversial backstory. I'll bring him in now."

He nodded to the ANBU standing by the door and it was opened to reveal none other than Itachi Uchiha, now known as Itachi Mamoru. That was when all hell broke loose, or rather the idiot Uchiha broke loose.

"You can't be serious sarutobi! This _boy_ is a traitor who was banished from our clan for attacking the clan head. He is not fit to even mop the floors of the council chamber, let alone actually join the council. Besides you can't have two clans with the sharingan, it just doesn't make sense!" The new Uchiha clan head shouted at him.

But the Hokage wasn't paying attention to the man at all. He was watching Itachi who for some reason was staring at the Inuzuka clan head, or more specifically the space behind the clan head, where her daughter was sitting in on the meeting, presumably in preparation of taking over as clan head. Not an unusual occurrence since the girl was the current heir and needed to be trained in the more mundane aspects of the position. What was even more interesting was that the girl was staring right back at him, it was as if they were both in some kind of trance.

Before long the trance was broken by the Hokage yelling back at the Uchiha, "Baishū Uchiha! If you do not calm down this instant then I will have you forcibly removed from the council room!"

This shut the man up as quick as he had begun his tirade.

The Hokage then looked around the room, "Are there any more objections to Itachi's taking a seat on this council?"

When nobody spoke up the Hokage smiled in triumph, "Very well then, Itachi Mamoru you have been granted clan status in Konohagakure, take a seat next to the Inuzuka representatives." As Itachi did so the Hokage moved on. "Now that we have that little piece of business settled, we can move on to other, more pressing matters."

He nodded to Hiashi who stood up and said in a calm voice. "Hokage-sama, I would like to request that reparations be made regarding the attack on my clan that nearly took the lives of my wife, daughter, nephew and several branch family members. The attack by Fugaku Uchiha was unfounded and unprovoked, and it not only caused physical and mental scarring on the children involved but forced me to reveal to Naruto the exact nature of his condition. Because of this I believe that reparations in the amount of twenty million ryu will be sufficient. Both for repairs to the house and grounds and for the hardship that the attack has caused my family."

The Hokage sighed, pretending not to enjoy this in any way, which was a complete and utter farce, if anything he believed that the repercussions should be worse than what Hiashi was requesting.

"Very well then Hiashi, all in favor of awarding the Hyuga clan reparations for the attack instigated by Fugaku Uchiha?"

Nearly every hand went up.

"All opposed?"

Only Baishū Uchiha raised his hand.

"The matter is settled then, the Uchiha are hereby ordered to pay reparations to the Hyūga clan in the amount of two hundred million ryu for the malicious attack that took place yesterday and their blatant use of this council in aiding the attack."

Thankfully this time the Uchiha who was present decided to bear this perceived insult in silence. That amount was rather large but still paled in comparison to how much was really in the Uchiha treasury. Years of skimming off the top of police budgets had made them quite rich, and since only Uchihas were allowed on the police force nobody was the wiser. Still he vowed to himself that this insult would not go unpunished in the long run. The Hokage smiled at him, as if knowing exactly what he was thinking. The old man paused before going on to his final piece of business for the day.

"I have decided that the time has come for me to step down as Hokage." the Sandaime said. "This is my second term and I feel that I am getting too old to do this job in the extent to which it requires. I have decided to chose Itachi Mamoru as my replacement. Providing he is approved by this council I will step down in two years time when he reaches the age of nineteen."

That was the moment when utter chaos decided to rear it's ugly head in the council room.

* * *

Naruto peaked through a crack in the door to Hinali's room. He had to know why she had done it, why she had been willing to die to protect him. He wasn't even her son! He wasn't even a true Hyūga! He spoke up in a timid voice.

"Aunt Hinali? Can I ask you a question?"

Hinali wasn't surprised to see him there, she knew how most of the villagers treated him. She had comforted Hinata many times as she cried over the treatment her crush received at the hands of random villagers, thankfully his learning to defend himself early in life (before he was ever allowed outside the compound on his own or with Hinata) had precluded any attacks on him by vengeful villagers looking to get rid of the 'demon child'.

"Sure Naruto what is it?" she asked.

There were tears in his eyes as he asked, "Why did you do it? Why did you protect me? You didn't have to, you could have run away, or just given me to him without a fight. You didn't need to get hurt to protect me. I'm not worth it, if you had just let him kill me then all of this would be over and none of you would be hurting because of me." He said sadly.

Hinali looked at him in consternation. "Naruto I thought that I had already explained all this to you before I fought Fugaku! I love you Naruto, it doesn't matter whether you are really related to me or not. I love you like a son and I protected you like it. Besides if you had died then Hinata would have been devastated, and so would I and most of our clan too. The branch members know what it's like to be affected by a seal that they have no control over, so they don't care about your tenant. And they really do care about you. Besides if I hadn't done it then Hinata would have."

Just then Naruto was tackled to the ground by said girl and pinned down. " Naru-chan I already told you, we don't care about any stupid seal or what's contained in it! So stop being an idiot and just accept that we love you!" she shouted.

Then realizing what she had just said, she proceeded to turn three colors of red before fainting dead away. Hinali just laughed when she saw it. Hinata had just declared her love for Naruto, too bad he was so dense that he didn't realize that. She would have to have a talk with Hinata later about this.

Naruto looked rather relieved to hear this from them. He made a decision then, one that would affect the course of his entire life from that point forward. He looked Hinali straight in the eye as he said, "I promise never to let you get hurt for me again, not if I can stop it. In fact I'm going to protect everyone from harm. I won't let any of my precious people get hurt while I'm around to keep them safe."

Hinali smiled, "And how are you going to do that Naruto?"

A look of determination came into his eyes as he answered her in a clear and confident voice, "I'm going to become the Hokage! That way I can protect everyone!"

Hinali smiled at him, she knew that he would succeed in this endeavor, or die trying.

* * *

"**QUIET!!!!!!!!!!"**

Everyone in the room froze in astonishment at the Hokage's shout. Who knew that the old man had such powerful lungs? He glared at them all.

"Everybody sit down and shut up."

As soon as everyone had complied he continued. "Now, one at a time you will tell me your objections to Itachi becoming Hokage."

Danzo stood up. "The boy is too young and inexperienced."

The Hokage smirked, apparently the Uchiha's allies had returned to their side for this battle.

"Are you sure you don't just want the position yourself?" He asked smugly, knowing it was true.

When it became apparent that danzo had no retort to give the next person stood up, he was a civilian, and about to demonstrate his naivete whenever it comes to the Uchiha clan.

"How can we be sure that he won't betray us like he did the Uchiha clan?" He asked.

The Hokage looked at him pointedly. "Because he didn't betray the Uchiha clan." He said firmly. "The Uchiha clan betrayed him by disowning him for doing his duty and protecting innocent civilians from harm, and they betrayed the village by attacking those civilians in the first place."

The gasps around the civilian side of the council were quite humorous given the situation. They had obviously believed the Uchiha's cover story that the 'demon brat' had instigated the attack on the Hyūga clan, just like they always did when anything bad happened they were trying to blame Naruto. They couldn't do it in this case because the one who was attacked was the one they wanted to blame. Hopefully Itachi would be able to control the council better than he had these last few years.

He cleared his throat. "The time for argument is over, it is now time to put it to a vote." The Hokage said firmly.

Once the ballots were cast the decision was final, in two years time Itachi Mamoru would be the Godaime Hokage. And his opponents couldn't even challenge it on the basis of fair play because he was chosen even though only the opposition had been given a chance to speak so if anything the vote was unfair because those who wanted Itachi as Hokage hadn't been given a chance to speak at all. And yet he still got the job.

* * *

After the meeting Hiashi pulled the Sandaime aside and said in an amused tone. "Two hundred million ryu? I only asked for twenty!"

The Hokage chuckled. "Did you? I could have sworn I heard you say two hundred. Maybe I should get my ears checked. Oh well, at least they'll think twice next time before trying to get to Naruto again."

Hiashi laughed at the joke. "You won't mind if I give most of the money to Itachi do you? I'm not exactly hurting for money and Naruto won't be either. Itachi is the one who really needs it, I was going to give the whole twenty million to him in the first place."

The Hokage smiled, "As long as the council doesn't find out I don't see why not."

"Thankyou Hokage-sama" Hiashi said before he bowed and left.

* * *

Itachi was sitting with his back against a tree in his favorite training ground. He was contemplating just what it would be like to be Hokage, and wondering how things would change because of this new development. The Uchiha clan would certainly be a problem at some point in the near future. Their arrogance knew no bounds and might just cause them to try something stupid like a coup d'etat in order to take over the village and feed their already giant egos even more. Sometimes he wondered whether there was an insanity gene inherent in his old clan, but the only mental trait they seemed to posess was a false sense of superiority. there was a shuffling behind him, indicating that someone was approaching from the direction of the village.

He turned to see the Inuzuka girl from the council meeting standing right behind him. He looked her straight in the eye and asked, "What are you doing here?"

She smiled at him. "You looked like you needed someone to talk to after the meeting so I followed you." She said quietly before coming over and sitting down next to him.

When he didn't say anything for awhile she leaned over to him and whispered in his ear. "I'll be right here when you want to talk to me. You can't keep all of this bottled up inside you know, doing that will drive you crazy."

When he still didn't say anything she tried another tactic. "So you're gonna be the next Hokage huh? I bet that's gonna be a real pain in the butt. Still...somebody has to do it. And I'd rather have it be you than that Danzo character, at least with you we won't get in any superfluous wars."

Itachi turned his head to look at her. She could see the worry in his eyes.

"What if I make a mistake? What if someone dies because of me?" He asked in a soft tone, only his eyes seemed to convey the worry that he was feeling at the moment.

She gave him a stern look. "Then you make a mistake. You're only human, and despite what people seem to think, the Hokage is not infallible or omniscient in any way shape or form. You are allowed to make mistakes Itachi. What matters is what you do once that happens. Do you curl up in a ball and cry? Or do you fix it as best you can and move on? I can tell you right now that the best leaders are those who don't worry about past mistakes, instead they look to the future and try to make sure it doesn't happen again." She said.

Itachi gave her a grateful look and said in a small voice, "Thank-you, you're helping me and I don't even know your name. I've seen you around but never bothered to ask for it." She smiled again. "My name is Hana Inuzuka, and I'd be delighted to help you any time you need it. But next time you have to buy me dinner first."

Itachi smiled at the joke. Perhaps the future wasn't as frightening as he had come to believe after all.

**A/N: well there you go. next we have a couple of slight time skips to make it to graduation day and their first missions. it seems like i'm making updates about once a week so i think i'll keep that trend going for awhile, it fits into my schedule pretty well and people won't get mad at me for not updating. but if i finish a chapter early then i will be sure to upload it as soon as i'm done proofreading it and such. **

**p.s. i think you guys will love where Naruto goes for his first c-rank mission, and no it isn't the wave mission. It's something even better, at least in my humble opinion. **


	13. new teams and genin exams

**Time skip To Final year of academy. **

_**1.5 years after the attack**_

The sound of clashing swords rang across the academy training grounds. It was Friday again and time to show how much their weapons skills had improved over the past week. This had been the normal Friday routine ever since the month after the attack on the Hyūga compound. After Sasuke heard that Naruto had nearly fought off his father with a weapon not taught in the academy he had been furious. In his mind Naruto didn't deserve to know how to defend himself. He didn't deserve to know how to fight with a sword when Sasuke, an _Uchiha, _did not. In Sasuke's mind he was the one who should have been allowed to learn sword fighting, after all he did deserve it, he was an Uchiha and it was his right to know everything before everyone else. It was his birthright to be the very best in the academy, so as soon as he had heard of Naruto's apparent skill with a blade he had barged into the Hokage's office and demanded to be allowed to learn as well. Since the Hokage had been planning to create a better weapon's program anyways, he had given the arrogant boy his that Sasuke had left with a smug look on his face, he didn't even wait for the Hokage to tell him which weapon trainer he should go to, as if it mattered to the boy, he chose his own master.

Of course the next Monday when Sasuke showed up to school with a katana strapped to his back he had immediately shown it off to everyone and bragged that he had special permission from the Hokage to have it. Imagine his surprise when Iruka walked into the classroom followed closely by Heiwa Sakusei and explained that the Hokage had decided that it was time for the academy students to learn how to wield their own unique weapons. He was rather pissed off at that, what he had thought was special treatment that he had intimidated the Hokage into giving him was nothing more than advance notice on a curriculum change for everyone, but there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was vow that he would be the best in this subject and hope that he would be able to "accidentally" kill Naruto in the process.

Heiwa hadn't been at all happy when he saw that Sasuke had taken it upon himself to pick out his own weapon before everyone else, but he had expected it to happen, the Hokage told him about sasuke's little temper tantrum in the office and how he had humored him. So he wasn't at all surprised and actually a little happy that the boy had found his own master to teach him. Heiwa had not been looking forward to dealing with the brat's ego so he just counted it as a win and proceeded to explain everything to the other, more compliant students, and left Sasuke to his own devices.

He gave each student a private skill and personality assessment to decide which weapons would be right for them. Unsurprisingly most of them tested out very well with conventional weapons such as swords, knives, or Bo staffs. There were however a few surprises, Shino had shown an aptitude for a rare tandem weapon known collectively as _wind and fire wheels. _Ironically Shikamaru ended up with the deer horn knives just like Hinata, and Kiba went with twin butterfly knives for some odd reason.

Naruto and Hinata of course tested well for their primary weapons that they had been learning for years, not surprising to him but surprising to the ones who didn't know of their training. After all of the students had obtained their practice weapons Heiwa had told them that they were to carry their weapons with them, in plain sight, at all times so as to get used to having them around. This meant a slight change for Naruto as that meant that he could no longer keep his tiger hook swords in the seals inscribed on his biceps and disguised as Uzumaki clan symbols. Instead he took to wearing them on his back in a sheath that was specially made for their unique shape, both sheaths crossed to form an X on his back so as to present a handle to each hand when he reached over his shoulders for them, and by carrying his swords strapped to his back he was able to put his deer horn knives in the seals instead of having to leave them at home. Hinata went through a similar change for her deer horn knives, Heiwa specially designed a sheath for them so that they could be holstered on her hips instead of inside the jacket lining as it wasn't feasible to reach for them in a fight when they were in that position. (imagine a standard police issue gun holster shaped to fit deer horn knives instead).

Since their jackets were no longer necessary to hide their weapons in, both Naruto and Hinata began wearing the standard Hyūga shinobi attire instead. Naruto's uniform was a very dark shade of orange with black lining on the edges and stripes in strategic places to break up his outline (the same way that a tiger's stripes give it camouflage in it's natural habitat even though it's fur is mostly orange) and if it wasn't for his fox-like characteristics he would have very closely resembled his weapons' namesake. Hinata's uniform was more of a tawny brown, extremely light yet well suited for camouflage in the forests surrounding Konoha, just as Naruto's uniform utilized a tiger's camouflage pattern, Hinata's utilized a deer's camouflage ability. This was all the result of an idea that their friend Shikamaru had shortly after the students all obtained their weapons, in a rare moment of non-laziness he was struck by the fact that Naruto's "_I'm an idiot please kill me_" orange jacket was horrible for camouflage yet he was never caught for his pranks.

As he watched Sasuke try to kill Naruto in their spar he realized that Naruto's camouflage and fighting abilities rivaled that of a tiger, which could hide itself despite it's color, he thought that if Naruto refused to wear another color he might as well wear the camouflage pattern of his weapon's inspiration. As soon as he realized this he got to thinking, if such a thing could work for Naruto, why couldn't it work for himself and Hinata? The same situation was apparent, a deer had almost unrivaled camouflage ability, and their weapons were designed to mimic the deer's offensive capabilities so why not mimic the animal's defensive ability as well? The lazy genius knew that Naruto wouldn't change his wardrobe willingly, but Hiashi could certainly get him to do it, so he went to the clan head and told him the idea.

Hiashi loved it, he thanked Shikamaru profusely and asked him to help by having his father make the uniforms out of Nara deer skins (the Kyubi festival was coming up and several of the Nara herd were usually butchered to provide venison for the event, plus the hides were going to be used as leather anyways so why not use them to make new uniforms for some up and coming shinobi?) doing that would make the uniforms durable and serve to help the Nara clan financially, which was always a good thing. Hiashi commissioned three uniforms for each child and even bought Shikamaru three as well (to thank him for the idea). Naruto was surprisingly receptive to the new wardrobe when he was told about it, but that probably had something to do with the fact that he was now allowed to wear orange without being yelled at for being too noticeable.

* * *

Naruto sighed yet again as Sasuke kept up his weekly routine of trying to kill him "accidentally" in a spar. He was extremely glad that such a thing would never happen. This past year and a half had been an amazing time for him and Hinata. He had finally managed to master the intermediate style for the tiger hook swords and was working on the advanced style which he would hopefully master in the next few months, the same could be said for his skills with the deer horn knives. He was a secretly acknowledged seal master for the village and was working on several seals on consignment from the Hokage and Hiashi, including a scaled down version of the caged bird seal in preparation for an ultimatum to the clan council, either everyone gets the scaled down curse seal (it has no pain/kill switch) or get rid of it altogether. Hiashi was rather confident that the elders wouldn't realize that both options had the same effect, making the entire clan equal with or without the seal.

Naruto's progress could be blamed entirely on one thing: he now knew what he was fighting for. Before the attack he had only had a weak desire to become a strong ninja to spur him onward,but after the attack happened he realized that he couldn't let his precious people get hurt because of him and his...tenant, so he went about his training with a new vigor, wanting to become the strongest ninja he could be so that he could protect those precious to him, and eventually, the entire village as their Hokage.

Hinata's training had progressed just as fast as Naruto's, she wanted to be as strong as possible to protect her 'Naru-kun' (she only called him that in her mind since she hadn't yet had the courage to call him that to his face) while he was protecting others. Because she was further along in her training with the deer horn knives at the time of the attack, and the fact that she only had one weapon to master instead of two, she had actually succeeded in mastering the advanced style for her chosen weapon. Indeed she was something to be feared by anyone who threatened her precious people. Not only because she had mastered her weapons but also because her mastery of the weapons forms had actually enabled her to master the jyukken as well, and put her own spin on it using her natural flexibility to make it even more deadly.

On top of that, over the past two years she had steadily climbed the rankings in the academy, at the moment she was in the number one slot and a shoe-in for rookie of the year, having taken the position from Sasuke six months before. And now there was absolutely nothing that Sasuke or any of the idiot Uchihas could do about it. As soon as she had learned to perform the shadow clone jutsu (only performed under close supervision and while wearing one of Naruto's 'chakra batteries') she had double or even triple the study time that other kids had, there was nothing to hold her back. Now some might say that that was cheating, but they had special permission from Iruka-sensei for her to use shadow clones to study and instead use her time to master her taijutsu and kenjutsu, which couldn't be learned using clones because they required muscle memory to master their techniques effectively. Naruto was currently working on a seal specifically designed for her, it was meant to be powered by his chakra batteries and would make her new Hyūga attire into a full fledged suit of chakra armor to protect her during battles such as the one he was in now with Sasuke. His theory was that if it was possible to make strings out of chakra that couldn't be cut, then it should be possible to make strips out of chakra and form them into a kind of platemail or chain mail armor.

His thoughts were interrupted by Iruka-sensei calling an end to Sasuke's weekly assassination attempt, jokingly referred to as a spar. As usual it was the last one for the day, since Sasuke tended to get carried away and was often too injured or tired to stay at the academy any longer. Naruto was glad that this was the last time Sasuke would be able to make an attempt on his life for quite awhile, the genin exams were scheduled for the next Friday and after that they would be full fledged shinobi and hopefully he would be away from the idiot Uchiha for a very long time.

Naruto was rather sure that he wouldn't end up on the same team as Sasuke, since he and Hinata had been planning for the past two years on how to be on the same team. They had hit on a rather good one too. Naruto was already the dead last in the academy, having hidden his abilities on purpose to avoid suspicion, and at the time that they made the plan Hinata was number three. Their plan was simple, Hinata would take over the number one slot and become rookie of the year, thus forcing them onto the same team in an attempt to "even out" the team dynamics, with any luck they would get a relatively good team mate that would make them into a well balanced team. They were hoping for either Shikamaru or Shino or Kiba, since they got along relatively well with all three of them, but beggars can't be choosers, so they were determined to be content with whomever they were given.

They wouldn't be disappointed.

* * *

Itachi walked into the Hokage's office, which, he reminded himself, was soon to be his office. He walked straight up to the old man and bowed before saying, "You wanted to see me Hokage-sama?"

The Sandaime looked up from his paper work.

"Ah Itachi you're here, right on time, as usual. Have a seat." Itachi did so. "How many times do I have to tell you to call me Hiruzen? Or at least Sarutobi. After all soon we'll be of the same rank." He said genially.

"I believe this is the two hundred and fifty second time you have made such a request. And my answer remains the same, until I am instated as Hokage and we are truly of the same rank I will continue to give you the respect that you deserve." He said matter of factly.

The Hokage smiled. "Fine then, but just because you are not Hokage in name doesn't mean that you can't be a Hokage in action. Take a look at these files and tell me what you think."

After he was handed the files Itachi glanced over them superficially for a second. Once he was finished he looked up at his soon to be predecessor. "These are the files of this year's academy graduating class. What do you want me to do with them?" He asked.

The Hokage looked at him calmly and replied, "I want you to separate them into teams, make them as evenly balanced as you can, and then chose one to take on as your own team. Once you have done that you are to find the jonin that would best fit with each team's skill set. Then you will explain to me why you made those choices. This is an exercise in team creation, since that is a rather large part of your responsibilities as the new Hokage, now get to work."

Itachi spent twenty minutes going over the files in more depth than he had the first time he looked at them. Once he was sure about his decisions he put the files together in groups of three. He then picked up the list of jonin who had demonstrated their willingness to take on a genin team and went over it several times before chosing several promising names from the sheet and retrieving their files. After reviewing the files he placed one with each group of genin. Once he was finished he beckoned the old Hokage over to review his work.

The old man was impressed, the teams weren't exactly what he would chose but they did complement each other very nicely, at least on paper. He had a sneaking suspicion that these teams would actually work better than the ones he was thinking of. He sat down across from Itachi and looked at him appraisingly. "Now, tell me your reasoning behind these teams."

Itachi shifted closer in his chair and picked up one pile of files. "I separated the teams into their potential skill sets and created three semi-specialized teams that should hopefully be rather successful in the long run."

He said before opening the files in his hand and spreading him out on the desk.

"The first specialized team I created is a C_apture/Interrogation/Pursuit_ team, I placed Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi on this team. Hopefully their teamwork will be as good as the past three generations of the team. My reasoning was that their fathers were specialized in this area and they most likely taught their children most of what they know, and as soon as they find out that their team has been reincarnated those man will most likely teach their kids everything that they left out. I placed them with your son Asuma because he has a similar mind set to Shikamaru but he still knows when hard work will be involved and doesn't shirk away from it. Hopefully he can teach Shikamaru to adopt this attitude to replace the one he already has. The man will also be good for Choji because he can teach the boy to use his larger size to his advantage, and that combined with the teachings of the Akimichi clan will mold Choji into a heavy combat fighter fit for any battlefield. Hopefully he will also be able to get through to Ino and stop her self-destructive fan girl crush on my brother. What do you think?"

the Hokage nodded. "Sound reasoning, good job Itachi. Now what about the others?"

Itachi closed the files for team Asuma and grabbed another pile to spread out.

"For this team I decided to try for a _Heavy combat/Escort_ team. I placed my brother Sasuke Uchiha, Hana's brother Kiba Inuzuka, and Sakura Haruno on this one. My brother's arrogance will set back their team work quite a bit, but Sakura's status as his fan girl will make her follow along with whatever he says and Kiba's natural sense of loyalty as an Inuzuka will tie them all together and hopefully rub off on Sasuke a little. I feel sorry that I have to place my future brother in law with such a horrible team but it really can't be helped, Kiba is one of the few I know who could possibly survive this team. I placed Kakashi as the Jonin Sensei to hopefully teach Sasuke teamwork." He said, looking up to be sure that the Sandaime was still listening.

He continued with his explanation once he was sure that the old Hokage understood his reasoning.

"Since Kiba is more suited to a tracking unit than a team such as this, I am going to have Hana train him on the side, because of his dual role as a heavy combat specialist/tracker we will be able to send this team on a greater variety of missions. I'm going to have Hana help Kakashi train this team because the man is always at least three hours late. Plus to keep Sasuke from doing anything stupid he is going to have to give him more attention than the others, giving them a second trainer will offset this and hopefully Hana can break Sakura of her fan-girl tendencies. Does that sound good to you?"

The Hokage nodded. "Yes, but I have to admit, I never would have thought of giving this team a second Sensei to offset Kakashi's bad habits. Good job Itachi. Now, on to the third specialized team."

Itachi obliged by spreading out the next set of files.

"This team is going to be a _Tracking/Pursuit/Heavy Combat/Bodyguard_ team, basically the perfect all around team for nearly any mission. I chose them for their variety of talents and for how well those talents complement each other. Once fully trained they will be able to track any missing-nin, no matter what his rank is, and have a high possibility of either retrieving or eliminating their target successfully no matter what the circumstances." He said matter-of-factly, before pausing for a second to let this information sink in.

The Hokage nodded and gestured for him to continue, so he obeyed.

"I placed Hinata Hyūga, Naruto Uzumaki, and Shino Aburame together on this team. I know that this team is supposedly the most imbalanced considering that it contains both the dead last and the rookie of the year, but I have a hunch that Naruto is much more skilled than he lets on, and his previous relationships with both team members will make for a very successful team dynamic. This is the team that I wish to teach myself, but I will have Kurenai Yuhi assist me since I am soon to be the Hokage and will have many responsibilities. Hopefully she will be able to offset my rigorous schedule."

The Hokage looked like he was about to ask a question, but Itachi preempted his query.

"And before you ask, the reason why I didn't chose Hana for this is because of the fact that we are in a relationship and it might cause problems later on, I will discuss my decision with her and hopefully she will trust me enough to let this happen without a fuss."

Itachi paused for a moment before continuing.

"I realize that this is a bit forward, but doesn't this situation remind you of your genin team? It's almost the same situation, if all goes well then I will be teaching a genin team while I am the Hokage, just as you did."

The Hokage's eyes widened. "I didn't see that until just now. Do you realize what this means?"

Itachi nodded his head but remained silent, waiting for the Hokage to continue.

"This means that we could have a new team of sannin on our hands right now!"

Itachi continued where the old man left off.

"And if we play our cards right, this team of sannin won't abandon Konoha like their predecessors did. Hopefully this team won't have a traitor like Orochimaru on it. That's actually why I placed Shino there instead of Sasuke, Shino doesn't have a desire for power like Sasuke and Orochimaru do. He will be a much better ninja than either of those two ever could be."

The old Hokage nodded thoughtfully.

"The only problem I can see is that the old sannin all had animal summons, so the new ones will need them too. We'll have to put out a search for some good summoning contracts to aid them in their missions. But which summons to give them? I have a feeling that we can get Naruto one with foxes,since he does contain the fox lord, but what about the other two? What summons can we possibly give them?"

Itachi sighed, "I don't have a clue at the moment, perhaps we should leave that question for another day. Hopefully we will find them a summoning contract by the time of their first c-rank mission, having a summons will greatly aid in any mission they are given."

The Hokage then came to an interesting realization, they didn't need to give the children a summoning contract, there was a way that they could get one for themselves, the way that Jiraiya got his toad summons. He told his hastily made plan to Itachi who agreed but insisted that they get the parent's permission before having the children do such a dangerous technique, and took the proper precautions once they did attempt it. This concern for his student's welfare only served to reinforce the Hokage's faith in the man and showed that he had indeed made the right decision in his choice of successor.

The Hokage smiled and stood up. "I think you'll be just fine as a Hokage, your team selections were superb, but what about the rest of the graduating class?"

Itachi stood up as well, "I placed them together as well as I could, but I sincerely doubt that the other teams will pass, the only ones I see potential in are the ones which we have already discussed."

the Hokage nodded gravely, "Sadly that is the way things usually play out in the end, only nine graduates are truly ready to be shinobi. Oh, well the others will have another chance next year. I'll see you later Itachi, and don't forget to observe your new team over the next week to see if you were correct."

Itachi nodded as he turned to leave. "I will Hokage-sama, see you next week."

For the first time in a month someone other than the Hokage used the door rather than the window.

**

* * *

  
**

**one week later **

**the day of the genin test.**

The genin test wasn't hard at all, both Naruto and Hinata passed with flying colors and received their hitai-ite from Iruka-sensei. After the test Hiashi and Hizashi met the two of them outside of the academy, but Naruto had forgotten his bag inside the classroom. He asked the others to wait for him as he ran back to the academy to retrieve it. As he neared the classroom he heard voices inside, and they didn't sound happy.

"I'm tired of all this crap! I'm being held back by this damn village and all it's morals."

"As I said before, you are welcome to join with Lord Orochimaru's forces if you want. But you need to do something to prove your loyalty first before I tell you where he is." said another voice from inside the room.

Naruto recognized the first voice as Mizuki-sensei, but the second voice was completely unfamiliar to him. "Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it, I don't care what it is." He heard Mizuki say.

"To prove your loyalty to Lord Orochimaru you must steal the forbidden scroll from the Hokage's office. Once you have it meet me outside the village, only then will I tell you how to find Orochimaru." The strange voice said.

"Alright I'll steal it tonight, meet me by the old shack to the east." he heard Mizuki say.

Naruto then realized that Mizuki planned to betray the village tonight. He left as quietly as he could in order to tell someone. As soon as he got outside he began to run after his family, only stopping when he had caught up to them. When he did he tried to tell them what he had heard.

In between huge gulps of air he managed to force out. "Mizuki-sensei....gonna ...betray...village...steal...forbidden scroll."

Neither adult fully understood what Naruto was trying to say, so he tried again once he got his breathing under control.

"I overheard Mizuki-sensei and someone else talking, Mizuki wants to defect to someone called Orochimaru. He's planning to steal the forbidden scroll from the Hokage's office!" Now they understood, and they didn't like what they were hearing.

"I'm sorry children but the celebration will have to wait. We have to report this treachery to the Hokage immediately. Naruto, come with me." Hiashi said. "Hizashi, take Hinata home and wait for us there. With luck this won't take long and we will be able to celebrate your graduations after Naruto and I return."

That being said, Hiashi led Naruto away to the Hokage tower.

It didn't take much to get in to see the old Hokage, being the leader of one of the most powerful clans in the village certainly had it's perks, and being with the jinchuriki didn't hurt much either. When the two walked into his office the Hokage was sitting at his desk battling his greatest nemesis: paperwork; so he was glad of the interruption, at least he was until he heard the reason why they came to see him.

As soon as Naruto finished his story the Hokage took action. He called in several ANBU to go and reinforce the guards around the scroll. Unfortunately village law did not allow him to take the word of a twelve year old soon to be ninja, the culprit had to be caught either in the act of stealing the scroll or after actually stealing it, they would have to set a trap. At least catching Mizuki would be easy, the hard part would be finding the spy in their midst who had been talking to the errant teacher in the classroom. At the moment all they could do was step up ANBU patrols through the forest around the village, and hope that ANBU torture and interrogation broke the man quickly before the spy left the meeting point or got wise to his loss of cover and decided to flee. No matter, few spies ever survived long once the Konoha ANBU counterinsurgency unit started looking for them.

* * *

On Monday Mizuki was conspicuously absent when Iruka walked in to announce the teams, apparently he really was dumb enough to get caught trying to steal the scroll, and then he tried to fight off the seven ANBU who were waiting for him. Not his best idea ever, the last time anybody had heard any mention of him was when somebody let slip that the chunin was in the secure medical wing of ANBU headquarters in a coma, when the man woke up he would be immediately sent to the prison, _if _he woke up at all.

Iruka quickly got the class under control and began to announce the teams. Naruto zoned out until he heard Kiba shout something about the teams not being fair because he was with Sasuke.

Iruka got a little frustrated and decided to use his outburst as a small example to the rest of the class, he said, "Look Kiba, you can whine and whine until the cows come home but you won't get yourself on a different team, the Hokage himself helped put these teams together and he set them up like this for a reason. Any questions?"

Naruto raised his hand.

"Yes Naruto?"

"Where are the cows and why haven't they come home yet?"

Iruka smiled at this and had a hard time holding in his laughter, the rest of the class had no such distinctions, they burst out laughing and didn't stop for almost five minutes. Iruka smiled at him, leave it to Naruto to defuse a potential argument before it even began. As soon as the class calmed down Iruka went on with the team announcements, "Team 8 will consist of Hinata Hyūga, Shino Aburame, and...Naruto Uzumaki..." At this a shout went up from both Naruto and Hinata, all eyes were on them as they hugged each other in their elation at being on the same team. As soon as they realized that everyone was staring at them they broke apart and sat down, blushing profusely. Iruka finished off the rest of the teams and sent the students off to lunch, telling them that that their jonin-senseis would pick them up after lunch.

* * *

After a very interesting lunch where Naruto and Hinata got to know Shino a little bit better, they ended up back at the classroom waiting for their new Sensei. They were surprised when a woman with red eyes came in and beckoned them forward, usually the jonin-senseis were men, it was very rare for a woman to make it to jonin rank let alone taking on a genin team. But they followed anyways, the group walked in silence for about fifteen minutes before they stopped. All three looked around in apprehension, they were currently in one of the less frequently used training grounds, their new Sensei paused as if waiting for something to happen. And then, out of nowhere, something did.

**A/N: Hmm, what's going to happen? what kind of summons will they get? When will those dang cows come home? **

**but seriously, anybody have any ideas about summons? i know what to give naruto, and i'm pretty sure about hinata's (though i'm most likely going to get flamed for it), the only problem is that **

**i have no idea what to give shino. i can't really think of anything that hasn't been done before. (yes i know that naruto as a fox summoner is a very common theme on this site, but trust me **

**when i say that the summons that I'm thinking of giving hinata have most likely never been done yet.) Let me know if you have any ideas about Shino, and remember that it doesn't matter if **

**there is an existing summoning contract or not. i have some serious deus-ex-machina (God of the Machine) already prepared to deal with that issue. five million**

** "_whose line is it anyway"_points ****to anybody who comes up with a good summons for shino, any idea for the other two will be seriously considered but don't be offended if i decide to go with ********what i already have. **

**And if you want an additional five million points that are made up and really don't matter, you can try guessing exactly how i'm planning to get them these summoning contracts. (hint: sarutobi already mentioned it in conversation with itachi.)**

**_the same conditions as my other reader participation offers apply. i'll give credit where credit is due _**

**_oh and i changed my profile to show additional information about this story just as i promised. _**

**_this information includes links to info on the unique weapons i've been mentioning._**


	14. the test Itachi style

_**I don't own naruto. seriously i don't. if you don't believe me then just ask the evil squirrels, they never stop reminding me of it. **_

_**just kidding...about the evil squirrels i mean. however i still don't own naruto.**_

_**there is a summary of the summoning contracts at the end in case i didn't explain it enough within the chapter itself (which i seriously doubt i did, so please read it just to be safe.)**_

_**

* * *

**_

Itachi suddenly appeared behind them in a puff of smoke and said, "So you're supposed to be my new genin team? I have to admit, you don't look like much to me."

All three of them jumped at the sound of his voice and whirled around, weapons already out and ready for a fight, then they realized who it was that had scared them.

"Itachi!" Naruto shouted, " Did you really have to scare us like that? And what do you mean your team? I thought that lady over there was our Sensei!"

Itachi nodded, "Technically she is Naruto, and technically she isn't. In truth, I am your official Sensei, she is the one who will take over for me when Hokage business gets in the way of my training you three." Itachi explained. "Now lets get introductions out of the way so that we can get down to business. I'll go first. My name is Itachi Mamoru, I like many things but I especially enjoy spending time with my girlfriend Hana Inuzuka, I dislike those who would judge others before they know the full story and those who hate people for reasons beyond their control. My dream is to one day marry Hana-chan and establish the Mamoru clan as a force for good within the village. Now you go." he said, pointing to Kurenai.

She nodded and spoke up. "My name is Kurenai Yuhi, I like training my genjutsu skills and hanging out with my friend Anko while trying to keep her from killing every man who attempts to flirt with her. I dislike people who refuse to ask for help. My dream is to one day settle down and have a family." She finished.

Naruto spoke up, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I like ramen, training, and hanging out with Hina-hime. I dislike those who feel that they are superior just because of their name, those who hate people for things out of their control, and anyone who tries to hurt my precious people. My dream is to become the Hokage so I can protect all of my precious people, and to restart my father's clan." He turned to Hinata, who was sitting next to him. She nodded and introduced herself.

"My name is Hinata Hyūga, I like pressing flowers, cinnamon buns and hanging out with Naru-chan. I dislike those who hate and attack others for stupid reasons. And my dream is to one day unite the Hyūga clan into one family. And maybe..." She glanced at Naruto and blushed. "Your turn Shino." She said quietly.

The silent boy nodded before speaking. "My name is Shino Aburame, I like collecting insect specimens for my family's insect farm, and observing human interactions. I dislike those who are prejudiced against others. My dream is to become powerful enough to protect my family and this village from those who would do it harm." Itachi nodded.

"Good job everyone, it seems we are all on the same page opinion-wise. Now on to the test." He was rather surprised when they didn't react at all like he thought they would, they just nodded in resignation, no shouting or whining or gnashing of teeth, just silent resignation and preparation for what was to come. Itachi was perplexed. "What, no reaction?"he asked.

Naruto shook his head. "We knew it was too easy with just that academy test, so we really expected some kind of twist before we were really allowed to be ninja. That's all."

Itachi nodded, "This is why I chose you three over all of the other teams, your analytical skills are superb. Very well we will proceed straight to the explanation of the test." He said before moving closer.

"This test is simple, all you have to do is successfully perform the jutsu I give you to do. Now pay attention to the hand signs I'm about to show you." He performed the hand signs, nicked his thumb with a kunai, placed his bloody hand on the ground and said, "Summoning jutsu!" In an instant there was a small red hawk standing in the spot where he had placed his hand.

"Did you need something Itachi-sama?" The bird asked.

The man shook his head. "No, I was merely showing my genin team how to summon." The bird nodded and disappeared.

Itachi turned to the genin. "Shino, you and Hinata are going to perform that jutsu now, without a summoning contract. Don't worry it's quite safe. And while you two are doing that, I have a different test for Naruto."

The genin nodded and separated accordingly, Naruto moving to stand next to Itachi and Shino and Hinata moving a small distance away from the group, just in case. They did exactly as Itachi said and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Itachi restrained Naruto as he made to run for their last known location. "Don't worry Naruto, I'm sure they're both fine. They just summoned themselves to the worlds of the summoning animal whose contract they are destined to hold."

Naruto didn't believe him. "How do you know?" He asked incredulously.

Itachi chuckled. "Because this is exactly what happened when Jiraiya of the Sannin tried to summon without a contract. Don't worry, with both of your teammates' gentle dispositions and their desire to protect others above all else, they should wind up in the worlds of some of the kinder and more gentle warrior summons, ones with that same desire to protect those precious to them."

Naruto visibly calmed when he heard this, then he asked the question that had been nagging at the back of his mind, "Why didn't you have me do that? What are you going to have me do instead?"

Itachi looked very grave, "We are going to have a chat with the kyubi," he said, "You are going to meditate and try to contact it, and I will assist you using my Kanryō sharingan to enter your mind scape."

Naruto nodded and followed Kurenai's instructions on how to meditate. After about five minute he realized that something was different, he was in a sewer, and Itachi was with him but he was only an image at the moment. "So this is my mind? Oh my gosh this means that my mind really is in the gutter!"

**"Calm down you stupid kit, this isn't your mind, it's the link between your mind and the seal holding me in."** Said a menacing voice from right in front of him.

That was when Naruto finally noticed the large cage in front of him. "So you're the kyubi?" he asked, slightly in awe. "I gotta say, I thought you'd be a bit bigger."

"Naruto," a voice said next to him, he turned and saw that Itachi was no longer an image. "We should really try _not_ to taunt the ten thousand year old demon sealed in your stomach, it really isn't polite, or conducive to our continued presence here."

Naruto nodded, "And why are we here? You never did tell me."

Itachi pushed him slightly forward, "The same thing Shino and Hinata are doing right now, obtaining a summoning contract."

Naruto nodded in understanding. He turned to the kyubi to ask for one, but then he noticed that the demon was laughing. "What's so funny?" He asked.

**"You are kit"** The old demon said, **"You two actually believe that I can give you a summoning contract? I'm a **_**Demon**_**! I'm not one of those wimpy summoning animals who need a human's chakra to come to this world! Go find one of them to get a contract from!"**

And with that both Naruto and Itachi were forcibly ejected from the seal. Itachi got up from his sitting position and brushed himself off.

"Well so much for you being the fox summoner, I guess you'll have to obtain a summons the hard way like Shino and Hinata. Perform the seals and get going. Oh, and good luck impressing your summons."

Naruto performed the seals and vanished just as Hinata and Shino had twenty minutes earlier. "Well, all we can do now is wait." Itachi said to Kurenai, who was sitting nearby. They weren't waiting for long before a poof of smoke appeared twenty feet in front of them.

* * *

Shino was surprised at the sight before him, it was a city, that much was sure, but it was like no city he had ever seen. Instead of buildings there were thousands upon thousands of anthills, home to every species of ant imaginable, all of them coexisting and even helping each other. It was like no insect colony he had ever seen, and that was leaving out the fact that there were ants the size of people in some of the hills. And, judging from the size of several of the hills there were some that were even larger, if the hill itself was any indication then its inhabitants were most likely fifty or sixty feet tall.

Shino turned when a flying ant as tall as he was landed next to him.

"Kumazu-sama wishes to speak with you." It said simply. "Please follow me." Having said that, it set off down a path that Shino hadn't noticed before. He followed reluctantly, and was glad that he did when several minutes later they came upon a clearing in the forest that surrounded the city of anthills. Standing in the clearing was a sixty foot tall Bull ant, a very imposing sight indeed, but a welcome one, considering his task here.

Shino bowed to the giant ant. "I take it that you are the leader here? Or at least someone in a position of power."

The ant, Kumazu, inclined his head. "I am." He said. "Only the queens are able to over ride my decisions. Now, tell me why you have appeared here."

Shino nodded, "I am seeking to make an alliance with your society, a summoning contract, so that I may better protect my family and my village from harm. Will you aid me in my quest?"

The large ant looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, this is an honorable request, and I can sense something different about you, something the others lacked. An insect like quality."

Shino nodded. "You are most likely sensing my kikaichuu, I am their host and they are my greatest weapons, we live in a symbiotic relationship with each other."

The ant nodded absentmindedly, apparently in telepathic discussion with his queen, "Hmm, you are an unusual little ninja, very well, my queen says that we will give you a chance. A summoning scroll is being created as we speak by the woodcarvers, it should be done in a few minutes. Once you have signed it I will explain the finer nuances of being an Ant summoner, and then we will send you back where you came from."

* * *

Hinata looked around, she was deep inside a forest somewhere. She could see shadows moving around the clearing, never coming into the dim twilight created by the forest canopy. There were whispers all around her, she could tell that she was surrounded, but one question still remained. What was it? What was surrounding her at this very moment? She wanted to activate her byakugan to find out, but she was afraid that it would be misinterpreted as a hostile act. So instead she waited, something would happen soon, she could feel it.

She was right, a movement off to her left caught her eye, she turned to face it, whatever it was. But was surprised to see...a rat. Scurrying towards her was a cobalt blue rat, showing no fear whatsoever. She squeaked when the rat jumped onto her sleeve and started to climb.

The rat paused when it heard the sound and said, "You know I'm not going to hurt you. We rodents just get a bad rap from the humans because they don't understand us."

Hinata was shocked to hear the rat talking to her, let alone trying to reassure her. "Um, yeah, well I wasn't scared really. Just surprised when you jumped onto my arm."

The rat sighed, "That's what they all say. My name is Nezumi, and I'll be your guide while you're in the forest. And you can relax a little you know, I don't bite...much."

Hinata was only slightly reassured by this. "I-I'm H-Hinata Hyūga. I came here to request that I be allowed to sign your summoning contract."

The young rat on her shoulder looked thoughtful. "Well I don't think that should be a problem, our last summoner died twelve years ago, and we've been waiting for a new one to show up. Let's find Sukuroru and have you sign the contract."

Just then a small rat with a scroll behind it's back appeared in the clearing. "Ah here he is now. Sukuroru, this is Hinata, she wishes to be our new summoner." Nezumi said to the newcomer.

The new rat inclined its head. "I see no problems, anyone brave enough to seek out the rodent contract is truly worthy of it." Sukuroru said.

Suddenly he increased in size until he was the size of an adult human holding a three foot long scroll.

"Can all of you do that?" Hinata asked in surprise.

Nezumi nodded, "Yes we can. It's one of the things that makes us powerful, yet underestimated at the same time, but it is only the rats who can do it. The other rodents have other abilities to bring to the table."

Hinata nodded before she went to sign the contract. She pulled back in surprise when she read the name of the last summoner. It was Kushina Uzumaki, Naruto's mother. She got over her shock quickly and signed the contract. Once she was done, Sukuroru shut the scroll and left. Nezumi then turned to Hinata and explained the intricacies of being a rodent summoner. Apparently the contract extended to all species of rodents, not just rats, who were the keepers of the contract. Once she understood everything that her new ability entailed she was sent back to Konoha.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto was in awe. He was standing before a giant...bear? No it definitely wasn't a bear, the markings weren't right. It was brown, with an oily coat of fur and silverish markings around the eyes. Naruto had to know what it was, so he decided to ask in the politest way possible. "Umm...i hope you don't mind my asking this. But...what exactly are you? I mean.. I've never seen an animal like you before."

The bear-like creature threw back his head and laughed. "I didn't think you would. I could tell the minute you got here that you weren't used to this kind of weather." The bear-like animal said.

And he was right, Konoha's location in the Land of Fire precluded it's getting colder weather, such as the snow that was gently falling at the moment. "If you aren't used to this climate then you've never seen one of my kind before. We like to live in the northern regions where it gets rather cold sometimes." the thing said. "Then what exactly are you?" Naruto asked, getting fed up with the creature's avoidance of the answer he sought.

"I am a wolverine." The creature, now identified as a wolverine, said. "I am the boss summon of the weasels. Not the weasels summoned by those sand ninjas mind you, that family left us long ago. We are the creators and maintainers of the true weasel summoning contract. Which I assume that you wish to sign." Naruto nodded his head. "You are correct." the wolverine nodded. "I will allow you to sign for now, but you must pass my test before you can summon me to fight with you." The big summon said. Naruto accepted this, mostly because he had to. "Do I at least get to know your name?" The big animal shook its head. "No, you do not deserve the honor of knowing my name until you pass the test and become the true weasel summoner. Though you might want to come up with a better name then that." Naruto nodded and turned to leave. "Don't worry, by the time I pass your test I'll have come up with an awesome name for myself." He said, "Now how exactly do I get back to Konoha?"

The big wolverine chuckled and slammed his paw on the ground, throwing up a large cloud of snow and dust. When it cleared Naruto was standing in the training ground staring at his teammates.

"Good job everybody." Itachi said after a second. "I assume that you three were all successful?"

"H-Hai," Hinata answered.

"You assume correctly." Shino said in his monotone voice.

"Well duh, why wouldn't I?" Naruto said, elated. "But I do still have to pass a test from the Boss summons to be the 'true summoner' as he called it."

Itachi nodded, "Then I assume that you were sent to the home of one of the more prominent summons. Which one was it?"

"The weasels, but this one has wolverines too, and some sort of gray tunneling animal that led me to the boss." Naruto answered. "What did you guys get?"

"I made a deal with the ant summons, but I don't need to pass a test. It seems that anybody willing to look past the stigma surrounding their species is deemed worthy to be their summoner." Shino said, "and what about you Hinata? Which animal did you encounter?"

"I-I was sent to the rodents, where I encountered a rat named Nezumi. I believe that the same reasoning the ants used was also employed by the rats, they didn't require a test, only that I didn't run away when I found out what they were." she said quietly.

Itachi nodded. "It seems that you three were each sent to the home of the summons that most resembles your mindset at the moment."

He turned to face Shino directly. "Shino went to the ants, who have a hive mentality and strong desire to defend their homes, just as he does."

He turned to Hinata. "Now Hinata,on the other hand, went to the rodents, and more specifically the rats, who display the same habits she does, often hiding in plain sight and shying away from confrontation unless absolutely necessary. But, they are also fierce fighters when they or their homes and families are threatened, just like you Hinata."

He turned towards Naruto. "And last but not least, Naruto. You went to the home of the weasels, but more specifically the territory of the badgers and wolverines, both of which are fierce fighters any day of the week, but even more so when threatened or protecting something. They are capable of taking down opponents three times their size. In much the same way you can do the same, you are a fierce fighter with exactly the same qualities that your new summons possess." Itachi said.

Then he backed up a step, so that he could look at them all. "You three have just succeeded where most ninja would have failed, you have obtained summoning contracts, and you did it as genin. I think I can be confident in stating that we will see big things from you three. And the fact that your summons are all considered weak will make your success all the sweeter. Now, if you only remember one thing that you learned today, be sure that it is this: separately you three may seem weak, but together you can become a force to be reckoned with. It doesn't matter if you lose a fight or two, or even two hundred, as long as you have each other, nothing can truly defeat you." Their Sensei said.

"That's all for today, just remember to practice your summoning, and if possible, try to do it without hand signs. Now, go celebrate with your families."

Having said his piece, Itachi vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving them with much to think about for the rest of the day.

**A/N:Thankyou to all those who reviewed and told me their ideas for the team's summoning contracts. And congratulations to Balatros for submitting the initial idea for shino's summons. I elaborated and expanded alot on it but I would never have thought of using ants as a summons. Somehow it just seemed right with his character as soon as i read the review. I had several requests for falcons as summons, so i gave Itachi the raptor contract (Birds of prey, ie: eagles, falcons, and hawks). A reviewer known as TL suggested mongooses, which set me onto the right track for Naruto's summons being weasels/badgers/wolverines, don't ask how because i don't know how i made it from mongooses to wolverines. I'm going to give The Unknown Twinkie an honorable mention because they suggested a wolverine summons for shino, even though i read the review after i had already written the chapter the idea was a good one, great minds must think alike.**

**And to address some worries expressed by naruto7332: i seriously doubt that the toads are the only ones who can use senjutsu. they are just the only ones that the writers have shown using it. so don't worry. if and when i find a way to make it happen I'll let naruto become a sage. but having a toad summoner on a team with an insect summoner/user wouldn't be a very good idea. somehow i doubt that shino would take too kindly to naruto's summons trying to eat him, or his little friends. the minute i decided to have shino on the same team as naruto i had to get rid of naruto's toad summons. sorry.**

**So here's a list of the known summons and abilities so far:**

**Itachi: raptors (birds of prey)**

**-his usual summon is a hawk but the boss summon is an eagle (think Lord Of The Rings in terms of size) most likely either a golden eagle or a bald eagle, but if there is a species that would fit better let me know. **

**Shino: Ants, any species.**

**-unlike other summoning contracts this one varies in use. shino can either summon entire colonies consisting of millions of smaller ants to help him fight, or one giant ant. the smaller ants he summons will usually be either army ants or bullet ants ( bullet ant idea courtesy of Balatros). the army ants have the ability to construct anything using their own bodies as the building tools. (some species actually do this, using worker ants to create temporary nests known as bivouacs). and bullet ants have a freaking painful sting so they are used as the weapons. as shino gets more experienced in summoning he will be able to mix the species he summons to get the greatest effect. because of his summons' small size they require less chakra than most summons. the only exception being the giant bull ants, since they are so huge, even still the bull ants require less chakra than most boss summons. **

**-altogether the at summons are not seen as a very powerful contract, but in the hands of an experienced bug user they can be just as deadly as the more famous ones, such as the snakes.**

**-when he summons an ant colony he is able to use his queen kikaichu to communicate with the queen ant, giving him great control over the ant colony. the queen ant seeks refuge within his body during the fight, his queen kikaichu allows this only temporarily to ensure mutual survival. they use numbers to overrun an enemy. **

**-their skills are best used in conjunction with one of the other summons.**

**Hinata: rodents, more specifically Rats at the moment. **

**- there are other species involved with the contract but for the moment she is only able to summon rats. they give her a tracking ability much like kiba's. the only known ability of the rat summons is that they can change their size to fit their siituation. but due to their association with the uzumaki family which came out of the whirlpool village it is assumed that they have an affinity with water jutsu, which they can use due to their dexterous forepaws (they function much like human hands, just without the thumbs). **

**- they are good for use as scouts, messengers, and trackers.**

**-much like shino's ants, they can be of some use in a fight but their skills are best used in conjunction with one of the other summons. **

**-rats have a bad reputation, but have a temperament very similar to dogs, they are very loyal and will do anything to protect their pack. the rats that hinata summons are more similar in temperament to the domestic rats (known as _Fancy rats)_ that are popularly kept as pets in many countries.**

**-you may not like it but hinata's temperament is very much like a rat, very meek and shy, but once she gets to know someone she will never be scared of them again. this is a small part of why i gave them to her as summons. that and i think it would be cool and ironic to have a giant rat fight manda, since his species usually eats them, how would he react to being beaten by one? plus nobody has done rats before, so i'm safe from anybody getting pissed at me for stealing their ideas. **

**Naruto: the hokage and itachi wanted him to get fox summons, but who really can summon demons? they are too arrogant to listen to anyone and the chakra requirement would be too big even for him. **

**-he gets wolverines/badgers/weasels. **

**-technically they're all in the weasel family, but what powerful predator wants to be known as a weasel? so they try to differentiate a little. naruto's summons include the entire weasel family but he will usually use either a badger or a wolverine in a fight. he can summon ferrets but they really are only good for tracking and just plain hanging out. he uses them as scouts and messengers and trackers. **

**-naruto's summons are the only ones who work well with or without one of the other summons to work with. their skills and power will be increased by the presence of one or both of the other summons, but their presence is not completely necessary for a victory. **

**-his summons are the front line fighters, while the other's concentrate on hit and run attacks (Shino's smaller ants, itachi's birds) and bombardment (Hinata's rats using long range hijutsu specifically made for rats and their summoners) **

**-they are also capable of working in concert with the other heavy hitters (shino's bull ant, hinata's giant rat/unknown giant rodent summon to be used/revealed later, and itachi's eagle) **

**Kurenai: ? it is unknown whether or not she has a summoning contract with a species (example:jiraiya's toads, orochimaru's snakes) or with a specific family of select animals (example: Kakashi's dog contract).**

**-While it is not a requirement to have a contract in order to be a jonin, it is a very big help. let me know if you think she should have summons, at the moment i'm leaning towards not giving her one, at least until much later.**

I don't really care whether i get flames for the animals i chose. i have reasons for choosing them. most of them stemming from the leaf villages emphasis on teamwork. if one contract was too powerful

then there would be no need for teamwork. all the same, their contracts don't require teamwork, they just encourage it. all three animals i chose either use teamwork in some way (hinata and shino's

contracts) or have a link to a species that does ( some of the smaller species covered by naruto's contract). only itachi's contract pertains to loner animals, but then again, bird's of prey are rather bad at ground fighting so he needs a team with a good ground attack variable to balance out his rather high aerial attack ratio.


	15. A new mission

**I apologize for the long wait for this chapter. i ran into a rather severe case of writers block when it came to itachi and hana's wedding, after several failed attempts at a convincing wedding i decided to let my readers use their imaginations. rather lame i know but faced with a decision of either pulling a lame author's trick or completely abandoning the story, i decided to chose the less annoying option, it also happens to be much much safer.**

Hinata shot up in bed, having been woken by the slight sound of movement by the side of her bed. As soon as she identified the intruder she relaxed her guard, she knew that the...individual...at the end of her bed was of little or no actual threat to her continued well being. The sound of slight giggling reached her ears before the figure moved closer.

"Your reaction time is getting better Hina-chan. Pretty soon I won't be able to sneak up on you at all!" The figure stated lightly.

"You wouldn't have been able to sneak up on me at all if I hadn't been sleeping Nezumi-chan!" Hinata replied indignantly. "Is there any specific reason that you're in my bedroom at 4 am? It seems a little early even for you."

"I have my reasons Hina-chan. I just came from the elders in the forest. They said your finally ready for the first step in becoming a rodent summoner!" Nezumi said excitedly, jumping up and down. Although she could appear much smaller, Nezumi had chosen to appear at her maximum size of three foot three inches (exactly one meter). Her cobalt blue fur shone in the moonlight, another signal of exactly how early it was.

"That's great Nezumi-chan, but why so early? Surely it can wait until morning."

"Because you have to receive your weapon at the setting of the full moon! Now get up or we'll have to wait another month!"

"Nezumi I already have a weapon! My deer horn knives are just fine , I don't want to switch weapons right now."

"Who said anything about switching weapons? This is another weapon to be used in conjunction with your other weapons or for you to use when your other weapons won't work as well. Now get up and follow me!"

Nezumi shrank down to the size of a common garden rat and ran out the door. She was followed minutes later by a rather tired Hinata, who was grumbling under her breath and promising death to whomever had introduced her favorite summon to the wonders of caffeine. (It was Naruto.) When she got outside Hinata was surprised to see the the largest rat she had ever laid eyes on sitting there waiting for her. He was at least 30 feet tall if not more and his fur was completely black. The minute he saw her he shrank down to the size of an adult human.

He looked at her appraisingly for a few moments before speaking.

"Welcome my child." He said. "The time has come for you to receive your birthright as our summoner." Instead of giving her a sword as Hinata expected, the giant rat motioned to Nezumi who then stepped forward to stand at Hinata's side. "Every rodent summoner has had a partner, who chose them by their own criteria. Over the past two weeks we have observed you in your daily life and interactions with others. At the end of those two weeks young Nezumi judged you worthy of her partnership, as well as her unique skills as a shape-shifter. She is the youngest of us to ever gain the skill, for her to chose you as a partner is a great honor. "

Having said his piece, the giant rat disappeared, leaving Hinata and Nezumi alone in the backyard of the main house.

Hinata turned to Nezumi. "So what did you mean by saying I would be receiving a weapon?"

Nezumi giggled. "Essentially that's what I am now. By fighting with you and for you I am essentially becoming a weapon, even if I can think and chose for myself, I chose to fight with you. Just like the dogs that the Inuzukas fight with, they are officially classified as a weapon in the ninja world, yet they are never treated as such."

Hinata nodded, "I see, so are you still a summon? Or did you give that up to become my partner?"

"I'm still a summon, it's just that you are now the only one who can summon me, and I can use your chakra (or that of someone with a very deep connection to you) to summon myself if I have to protect you and I'm not nearby." nezumi looked down at the ground, as if ashamed.

"There is a downside to our arrangement though: if you have need of a bigger summon then you can summon them, but it will take more chakra to summon them now. On the upside, since I am now your partner, it takes a lot less chakra to summon me, like barely any at all. Just enough for a low end c-rank jutsu, or so I'm told." Nezumi replied.

"I understand, but can I go back to sleep now? I might be able to catch another two hours if I hurry."

"Fine go back to bed, you lazy-butt." Nezumi said in fake exasperation.

**Four months later**

A flash of orange was seen moving past an alley way before disappearing into the darkness once again. The prey looked up fearfully for a moment before deciding it was nothing to worry about. Big mistake.

Chakra strings flew from the shadow where the flash of orange disappeared, completely ensnaring the prey.

"Will this cat ever learn?" A voice said, as the owner of said voice came out of the shadows. "I mean seriously, this is the twenty-third time we've caught it this way. Not to mention the twelve times we caught it with your bugs Shino."

"You would think so Naruto. But then it is only a cat. Not the smartest of animals." Shino said as he too appeared.

The cat seemed to glare at both boys as if daring them to release it and say that again.

"You two really shouldn't insult Tora." Hinata said as she bent down to pick up the cat. "Remember what happened last time?" both boys shuddered at the memory of the day when they had decided that only Hinata could carry the cat once it was captured.

The cat had tried to maul both Naruto and Shino, not very effectively, seeing as it was only a house cat, but rather unpleasant all the same. They would never look at a cat the same way again.

Hinata giggled at the look on both boys' faces before saying to Naruto. "You can release the chakra strings now Naru-chan. I don't think Tora-chan is going anywhere." Naruto complied, rather reluctantly, but considering his past with this cat and its close proximity to his Hina-hime, the reluctance is understandable. As soon as it was released the cat struggled for a second before Hinata began petting it and the ornery feline settled into her arms, purring contentedly. Naruto had nothing to worry about.

"Good job team!" Itachi said as he appeared next to Hinata. "You three are free to go as soon as we report to the Hokage. But remember not to be late tomorrow, I don't think Hana-chan would like it very much." All three genin nodded, bridezilla had nothing on a female Inuzuka the week of her wedding.

**Itachi and Hana's wedding**

Naruto sighed as he struggled into the formal kimono he had to wear that day. Four months of D-rank missions, intense chakra training, teamwork exercises, and ninja life in general could do nothing to prepare him for an entire day in this uncomfortable outfit. But he had to wear it since he was filling in as the brother of the groom, since Sasuke wouldn't even talk to Itachi, let alone participate in his wedding to an 'inferior woman.'

"Aren't you ready yet?" Itachi said from the doorway, interrupting Naruto's reverie.

"Sorry Itachi-niisan but this kimono just won't cooperate with me!" Naruto said in a frustrated tone.

Itachi stepped in to help him. "Well there happens to be a very good reason for that Naruto." he said with a chuckle. "You were trying to put it on backwards."

"Oh...that's a good reason." Naruto said as he fixed his mistake. "Hey why aren't you ready? We can't start without you. It's your fault that I have to wear this stupid thing in the first place!"

Itachi chuckled. "That's true Naruto. And I was on my way to my dressing room to get ready when I saw you struggling so I stopped to help you first. Since helping you tends include some form of a mess I felt that it would be prudent not to be dressed up."

Naruto looked offended, "Hey I'm not that messy!"

Itachi chuckled again, "If you say so kid. Now I'm off to get ready, can you manage to stay clean until at least after the ceremony is over? You have a very important part you know."

Naruto sighed, "I'll try Itachi-niisan, but it's the messes that usually find me, not the other way around. I prefer being clean."

"Well okay then. I'll see you out there Naruto." Itachi said as he left.

Naruto and Itachi were standing at the front of the ceremony hall. Between Naruto and Itachi was an Uchiha named Shisui, he was serving as Itachi's best man. On Naruto's other side was a jonin named Kakashi, he was looking rather put out at the moment because he had been told the wrong time for the wedding. Apparently Hana wasn't so sure that he would show up on time so his invitation had it starting at ten am. rather than at noon like everyone else's did.

Everyone turned to look to the doors at the back expectantly when the music started. As the doors opened Naruto saw the most beautiful sight he would ever see, Hinata. Her dress was the same as that of the other two brides maids Anko and Kurenai, but for some reason it just seemed to make her glow. It was light blue and cut just right so that the wearer didn't reveal anything but still looked exceedingly beautiful. Hinata and Kurenai both had smiles on their faces but Anko just looked pissed off, most likely because she was being forced into a dress, and it just happened to be tasteful and elegant. (Or as she called it: a circus tent.) after all three had made it up the aisle everyone turned back again to see the main attraction: Hana Inuzuka, soon to be Hana Mamoru. If it was possible she looked even more beautiful than her brides maids (and yes it was possible), her dress was pure white, as was traditional, and it was cut just as tastefully as the others. Following behind her were her three ninken in escort positions on either side and behind her. When the procession reached the front of the church the ceremony began in earnest. When it was finished there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

**One week later**

"Hina-hime, do you have any idea why old man Hokage called us in for a mission? I thought we were focusing more on training until Itachi-sensei gets back from his honeymoon." Naruto asked quizzically.

"I really have no idea Naru-chan but I expect we'll find out when he calls us in there, now won't we?" Hinata replied kindly. Just then the door to the office opened to reveal Kurenai, looking rather annoyed and worried for some reason currently unknown to the three genin and one rat sitting there.

After everyone was situated in the office the old Hokage began to speak. "I expect you three are wondering why I called you here today." Seeing them nod he started to explain.

"Your senseis and I have decided that you are ready for a C-Rank mission, to begin immediately after this meeting adjourns. You will be escorting a couple as they go to Wave Country on an extended vacation. After you arrive in Wave Country you are to gather information on the growing situation in that country for our analysis and possible intervention. You will most likely be gone for two to four weeks, so pack accordingly. We do not expect you to encounter any enemy activity on this mission but I would advise that you pack as if you were expecting such an encounter, just to get into the habit. Are there any questions?"

Naruto raised his hand. "Why are we going without Itachi-Sensei?"

"Perhaps your client can answer that for you." the Hokage motioned to the ANBU by the door, who opened it to reveal Itachi and Hana Mamoru.

"I trust that the three of you will handle this mission with the utmost care and respect, despite the fact that I just happen to be your Sensei. Please meet me at the gates in an hour so that we can depart." Itachi said softly yet firmly before leaving out the way he came in.

ooooooooooo

After they had set up camp for the night Itachi called them all together for a team meeting.

"I must confess to our using false pretenses to get us out of the village but it was necessary for the success of our real mission, which is much more difficult in nature than you were led to believe."

Itachi handed each of them a scroll before continuing. "This scroll contains all of the information you have clearance to know. And before you ask, as apprentices to the future Hokage, you three have a rather high clearance level, much higher than any regular genin, in fact it is higher than most chunin and even a few jonin as well. That means that none of your friends can know what you are about to read."

**written on the scroll**

_The village hidden in the tide (shiogakure) is a top secret outpost village of konohagakure. Nobody knows of it's true loyalties other than the Hokage and a select few jonin who are considered trustworthy enough to know of it in case the Hokage should die without imparting the knowledge on to his successor. The only place that the information is acknowledged in writing is within the Hokage's black file which itself doesn't officially exist either. _

_It was built just after the third shinobi war as a way to avoid the desperate situation experienced by Konoha being attacked by most of the other major villages at the same time. It combines the power and advanced techniques of a major village with the anonymity and safety that comes with being a minor village. _

_Shiogakure itself is actually comprised of two separate villages. A front village on the coast which supports the village financially and the real village located underground and underwater a short distance away. _

_The ninja portion is in a hidden inlet bay situated with a medium sized valley around it and the valley is surrounded on three sides by mountains. The only documented way to officially access the hidden village is through a sea cave hidden by the tide for most of the day, hence the name of the village. It is rather hard to get to unless someone has a tide ninja escorting them. The front village is on the other side of the mountains and connected to the valley by a labrynth of tunnels. _

_It is located close to Wave Country, within three days journey for a shinobi. _

_None of the other hidden villages officially know about the outpost, but none of them officially have their own outpost villages either. Most of the five major shinobi villages (Iwa, Suna, Konoha, and Kumo) have an unofficial outpost, since their countries are so large. Mist does not since it is so small compared to the others. It was agreed in the truce after the second war that the outpost villages would be left out of all further hostilities between their linked villages unless specifically called upon by the leadership of the countries. In this way the villages can maintain their anonymity and protect the people if their linked villages fall. While it is common knowledge to the Kages of the villages that these outposts exist, they have made no effort to find them._

_The village's true location is an S-Class secret and the front village is located two days travel away from the real thing. The only access to the valley is through an ever changing network of tunnels. Or over the mountain range surrounding the village. But even if one does make it over the mountains, a nearly impossible task. They won't be able to find the village because it is built almost entirely under water and partially underground. All training grounds are located on a series of volcanic and created islands near the underwater portions of the village._

When he was sure that they had read the scroll in it's entirety Itachi spoke again.

"I know that the information on that scroll may seem like a lot, but it is inconsequential compared to the information you aren't allowed to know at the moment. What you are allowed to know is that our true mission lies in Shiogakure, not in Wave, that was chosen as a cover simply because of it's convenient geographical location. There seems to be something happening in Shiogakure, an outside force is trying to subtly take over the village without alerting Konoha before it is too late. Fortunately, we did discover the plot and our mission is to warn the village leadership and render any assistance necessary to prepare for the fight ahead."

Naruto looked like he was about to ask a question.

"And before you ask, the answer is no. you will not be fighting if it can be avoided, your orders are to assist in the preparations and try to leave before the fighting starts. But just in case you are caught in the fighting I want all of you to carry your weapons at all times, and at least five chakra batteries in case your larger summons are needed."

"Now that the top secret portion is taken care of we can move on to more pleasant things. This will be a joint mission, we will be meeting up with team ten in twenty-four hours. They do not know the exact details of the mission, as far as they know Shiogakure is a minor village allied to Konoha whom we are delivering some intelligence to. They will not know more until we reach the village itself. In reality we are going to use Shikamaru's tactical genius to prepare for the attempted take-over of the village. We would have brought his father, but such an action would surely have gotten the attention of the one we suspect is behind this."

Kurenai chose that moment to step in, "If Itachi is done explaining then I think it is time to go to bed, we will have three watches, Naruto and Hinata, Shino and myself, and Hana and Itachi. Please try to keep the PDA to a minimum while you are on watch."

"PDA?" Naruto asked.

Hinata chose to put him out of his misery. "Public Displays Of Affection, Kurenai-sensei is asking that we all refrain from any displays of how we feel about each other while on watch. Though I think she was focusing on the kissing aspect." Hinata said with a blush growing deeper with each word. She was pleased to note that Naruto's blush matched her own by the end of the explanation.

Naruto was slightly confused about that statement, while he did feel that way about Hinata, and certainly wouldn't mind kissing her, he just couldn't see how she could feel the same way about him. In fact he was almost sure that she wouldn't feel that way. But there was enough of a doubt there that he could see that there was a possibility, however slight, that she felt the same way that he did, enough to make him start to examine their relationship and wonder if it could be more.

Hinata's mind was moving along a similar track to Naruto's. It was similar enough and distracting enough that neither of them noticed when their teammates left them for the night. In fact the only reason they even remembered to wake up the next shift was because it started raining halfway through their own shift. When that happened Naruto unsealed a tarp he had for such occasions and draped it across both of their shoulders, they stayed huddled together that way (for warmth of course) for the rest of their shift.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

A day later the future Sannin did indeed encounter Team Ten, their reactions to the subterfuge used in getting them out of Konoha were pretty much what you would expect from them, Ino was annoyed, Shikamaru said the whole scenario was 'troublesome' before deciding to cloud watch until it was time to leave, and Choji just opened a new bag of chips.

Regardless of their initial reaction the genin of team ten after realizing the sensitive nature of their real mission and how important it was to the village felt 'honored' to be chosen. At least that's how Asuma put it, in reality Ino was looking forward to rubbing it in Sakura's face (the non-classified portions of course), and Shikamaru still thought it was troublesome, Choji thought it was cool though and trult did feel honored that he was chosen to help. And wherever Choji goes Shikamaru is sure to follow, if only to keep the boy out of troublesome situations. The lazy boy may have been looking forward just a bit to being the one to help plan the counter-strategy for the village leadership of Shiogakure, but he would never admit it in front of Ino, she would never let him live it down if she found out.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo

When the two teams reached the town they were met at the cover office they were met by a very interesting genin team.

"You're who they sent from Konoha?" One of them asked in bewilderment. "I thought they were sending a heavy combat team and a master strategist!"

"They did send those teams just in miniature form." Itachi said jokingly. Then he proceeded to introduce all of the people brought with him. "And last but not least, I am the future Godaime Hokage Itachi Mamoru and this is my wife Hana." He said in closing.

"It's nice to meet all of you." One of the Shiogakure genin said in greeting.

"I am Mentoli Linosho," (pronounced men-toe-lie lee-no-show) "and these two are known as the twins, they don't want me to tell you their names, so you can just call them Twin G and Twin B, twin G is the boy and twin B is the Girl. Don't ask me why they do it that way because I really don't know, maybe they just want to confuse people who don't know their names."

"The twins don't really talk much so don't bother trying to get them to, I've been on their team for five months and I only just learned their real names yesterday, and maybe heard them speak six paragraphs in all the time I've known them."

This seemed to startle team ten, but not team eight, it's possible that dealing with a silent Shino on a daily basis had made them immune to such behavior.

Mentoli kept going with his mini speech, one that several of the newcomers were sure was quite rehearsed. They would be right, fetching visitors from the front town is a very common C-Rank mission for Shiogakure, only ranked so because of how confusing the tunnels can be, and most genin end up with a rehearsed speech that they use every time such a mission comes up.

"It's usually a two to five day trip through the tunnels depending on how the leading team decides to go, but considering the urgency of your mission, we'll skip the long way and make ourselves a shortcut through the tunnels. So let's go, before I decide to change my mind and we take the week long route."

As soon as they were gone the person running the field office sent a message to his mysterious benefactor. It read: 'Konoha ninja in area, send instructions.'

Three days later upon receiving that missive, the man responsible for the trouble cursed, if this message was to be believed then it was very possible that the Hokage knew of his plans to get his own village. This didn't bode well for his plans. If only the idiot who sent this message had included more details!

This type of situation was one of the reasons why he preferred to use operatives he had trained himself, not bribed bureaucrats who were only playing at the espionage game and couldn't do it for real if their lives depended on it! Which in this case it probably did. He sent a reply message to the idiot spy: 'takeover to begin in one week. get ready.'

Once the message was away the man called for his second in command. "How soon can we get our forces to Shiogakure?" He asked the man.

"It is normally a weeks journey for a ninja, but if we push them we can have our troops there in five days, no less than that if you want them combat ready. Even with the five day trip we will need to wait a day in order to have our forces at full strength. We can take that rest as we go through the mountain passes that are open this time of year."

the second in command started pacing. "If all goes well then we won't be spotted, there are few patrols that go through the passes, and what few there are will be full of men loyal to you that we inserted into their forces. Those men combined with the ninja we bring and those we already have inside should be enough to take over without much loss to the strength of your forces. We will be successful." The second in command replied.

"Good see that it is done, every day wasted in traveling is another day that I don't have my own village, and another day those fools can spend in preparation to foil our plans. Though I doubt they are smart enough to know what is about to happen to them." The instigator stood up.

"Send out the signal to our ninja inserted into their ranks for them to complete their assigned duties in six days, if all goes well then those peace loving fools will never notice the army assembling on their doorsteps just waiting to invade. Move out!"


	16. the mission continues

The trip through the tunnels was as uneventful as it was short. Well, if you count twin G having an almost reflexive control over the earth element as a normal everyday occurrence, which for Mentoli and twin B it was. For the genin from Konoha it was rather eventful because of that, if not because of the scale of the tunnels.

When they heard about the tunnel system the genin were expecting to see short squat and confined spaces. That wasn't what they saw. They saw normal hallways and rooms with no confined spaces in sight, the only difference the tunnels had from a normal building was the lack of any windows. The native genin just laughed at the "foreigner's" reactions and waited until they were ready to continue on down the hallway/tunnel.

With twin G's control over the earth the travel time was cut down to just a day, rather than the two to five days the usual trip would take. When asked why the tunnels weren't the straight shot that they were taking at the moment the ninja from Shiogakure replied that not all visitors were considered trustworthy enough to let them in without evaluating them first. The case would be the same here if it weren't for the threefold approval by the Hokage and the Shiokage as well as the presence of the future Godaime Hokage as one of the jonin they brought with them.

Frankly the sheer unlikelihood that three jonin could be overpowered and replaced would have been enough for the genin but their jonin-sensei - one Subarashii Yūjin- who joined them as soon as they were confirmed as themselves, was a bit more suspicious of so many high powered ninja in one place. Once he saw their classified orders he allowed the deviation from the escort routine, if only to get the time sensitive intelligence to the shiokage and begin their war preparations as soon as possible.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Mitarashi Aiko, the Nidaime Shiokage, was a driven woman who had lost her oldest daughter Anko to the machinations of Orochimaru, she knew that her daughter was alive and in the service of konoha, but sadly couldn't contact her because Anko was only a special jonin and the meddling civilian council wouldn't let her move any higher in rank.

The problem was, every time the ninja council tried to grant her the rank of jonin and all priviledges associated with that rank, the civilian council and their bribed votes on the ninja council were able to block it. There are only so many times that the Hokage can step in to curb the civilian council's power before they decide to try to seize more power yet again, and most of those times were used to keep them away from Naruto.

The civilians didn't know it but their power over the ninja council was about to end, with the renewed retirement of the Hokage the Sarutobi clan was about to emerge from their forced place as a provisional member of the council, and take their rightful place as a full voting member, successfully tipping the balance of power back to the side of the ninja clans, as it was supposed to be from the beginning. Maybe then Aiko would be able to see her daughter again.

Such problems were the reasons behind Aiko's transfer of her family to shiogakure, first as second in command of the building force and then after the death of the shodaime shiokage she took over as the nidaime shiokage after a vote by all of the residents of the new village. Her husband was supportive of her through all of it, he knew that she could never be happy in Konoha as long as her daughter was missing. They were informed of their possible assignment to the forces being moved before their daughter's disappearance so this just solidified their resolve to go with them.

The kyuubi attack which decimated konoha's forces and killed the yondaime hokage provided the perfect cover for the drain on the village's forces created by Shiogakure's creation. Since the plan was created and championed by the Fourth Hokage the attack had the added benefit of causing all detractors and interested foreign and domestic parties who could cause problems for the fledgling village to simply assume that the new village died with the fourth.

Such an attitude was a great assistance to the Third Hokage who knew about the plan and was one of the main planners of the exodus. He sent the forces allocated to the venture out of konoha and on to the final location they had selected the day after the attack happened so that the missing ninja were assumed killed by the Kyuubi rather than have certain people (namely Danzo the dastardly dee-dee) searching for the cause of so many sudden disappearances.

Hidden tunnels were used to get halfway to the final location and filled in behind the last person to preclude their being followed by Danzo's root or one of Orochimaru's spies, of which there were none present in the new village, of that they were sure since all participants were cleared by ANBU counter-intelligence. The deception worked so well that not even Orochimaru knew about Shiogakure's connection to Konoha, and he prided himself on knowing everything. This was ensured by not telling any of the sannin before it was absolutely necessary, since none of them believed in Orochimaru's guilt until faced with absolute evidence of it. With the new villagers were two of the greatest seal masters konoha had ever known, other than the fourth or jiraiya, trained by the Yondaime himself to create the special buildings necessary for the creation of the villages ultimate camouflage and defense.

Their ultimate camouflage and defense was so complete that there was only one way to access the village and no components of the village were visible within sight of land. It was as simple as it was complicated, the entire village was located either underwater or under ground, but all of it was located out in the middle of the bay. All above ground portions of the village were housed in seal-strengthened domes the largest of which most people wouldn't be able to see all the way across. All of the domes, no matter how large were made transparent by additional seals added to the mix by cabin-fever conscious seal masters to provide for the changes of scenery required to stave off such problems. The only above ground/water portions of the village was the series of training grounds located on a chain of volcanic islands that were added on to by earth-jutsu using ninjas, located slightly out at sea that were absolutely perfect for such a use, guarded by powerful genjutsus of course.

The village's greatest achievement to date was the rescue and continuing survival of many of the bloodline clans from Kirigakure, at the moment many of them only have one or two wielders, but some have up to ten. All depending on how many were able to escape the carnage and make it to the hidden safe houses created by Shiogakure.

The only catch to Shiogakure's allowing the continued survival of the bloodlines was the willingness to add more genetic diversity to their lines, in order to avoid the problems facing the Uchihas and soon to be facing the Hyūgas as well. Not much in the Face of everything else that was happening, so most agreed to it. It was from the first of these pairings that twin G and twin B were born.

It amazed the bloodline clans to see how a bloodline can change for the better with new genetic material. Their mother was an ice wielder of the Hyoton bloodline and their father was a master of earth style ninjutsu, from the simple change of adding the possibility of earth natured chakra came twins, one who wields earth as if his bloodline was earth wielding rather than ice wielding, and one who wields ice and water like it was merely an extension of her body, she had the strongest manifestation of their bloodline to be seen in generations. After they were born even the strongest detractors to the new arrangement were silenced when faced with proof that inbreeding weakens the bloodlines over time, rather than strengthening them as was thought before.

This concentration of bloodlines had never happened before in the history of the ninja world and soon would serve to make Konoha and Shiogakure into the strongest ninja villages in fact as well as name, rather than the present situation where it was only in name.

The Shiokage had known for some time that if dastardly dee-dee knew about the strength of her village then he would seek to gain such strength for his own personal use, preferably (in his mind) before Konoha's regular ninja force could be strengthened by ninja sent over from Shiogakure as was intended from the very beginning in the case of a sudden weakening of the main village which was sure to happen soon if certain sources were to be believed.

Recently shiogakure had discovered a sudden influx of spies attempting to infiltrate the village, what she didn't know was identity of the man behind the spies. Thankfully their seal masters had disabled all of the dead man seals and anti interrogation seals on the operatives. Their efforts were rewarded with the spy tactics and codes necessary to keep the controller in the dark, but no identity was forthcoming.

She had given the order to keep the spies transmissions on the air with the right codes to keep the fact of their discovery from being known. She knew that in all likelihood there were more spies that had been caught, but she could hopefully keep the wool over their eyes just long enough to allow the requested help enough time to travel from Konoha. If the controller was one of the two men she thought it was, then she and her village had bigger problems than the message from sand asking for an alliance against Konoha she had just received. Hopefully this little situation would be resolved soon so that she could warn Konoha of this treachery before the situation with the sand village played out in it's entirety.

Right now the very best genin team she had was escorting the assistance that she had requested, and they should be arriving soon, she knew Mentoli very well, he was her best friend's son after all, and that boy knew exactly when he was supposed to be as fast as possible, and this was one of those times.

oooooooooo

Right then the genin she sent out to escort the leaf ninja arrived back at the Shiokage tower, located in the center of the largest underwater dome. The tower stretched all the way to the top of the dome and doubled as the central support keeping the dome from collapsing in on itself. It was quite an impressive sight, and was sure to awe the Konoha teams who had never before seen construction like this on such a large scale before.

"welcome to Shiogakure!" she said to the newcomers in what she hoped was a welcoming fashion. "I trust your trip was uneventful?"

"I could have done without swimming through a flooded cave to get here, it was just so troublesome." One of them said, only to receive a slap to the back of his head from the blond girl on his team.

"Oh come on Shikamaru, swimming through the cave was rather fun, especially when the sharks came after us!" A blond haired boy said excitedly.

"Now naru-kun you know that there were no sharks chasing us. Don't exaggerate so much, it's misleading and impolite." The dark haired girl next to him reprimanded gently.

"I'm sorry Hina-hime, my imagination ran away with me again." The blond one then turned to Aiko and bowed slightly. "I apologize for exaggerationg the ending of our trip Shiokage-sama, I will try not to let it happen again."

"That's alright young man, I'll let it slide this time." Aiko said lightly. "Now why don't we get this briefing over with?" She sat back down at her desk after sending out teams eight and ten and activating the privacy seals around her office.

"Well? What did you come up with Itachi? Is it who I think it is?" She asked urgently.

Itachi looked sad, "No, it's worse. Our best sources indicate that Orochimaru is busy with something else at the moment, the scale of which seems to be of epic proportions. While we can't confirm what that is, we can say with certainty that he hasn't discovered your existence yet, though your making the mist bloodlines disappear has pissed him off quite a bit."

"Well if it isn't Orochimaru then who could it..."Aiko gasped, "He wouldn't...How could he? Would Danzo really stoop to attacking fellow Konoha ninja?"

Itachi shook his head, "In his mind you aren't Konoha ninja anymore, you ceased to be Konoha ninja the day you went beyond his sphere of influence. It doesn't help that you have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in terms of creating a powerful backup force of ninja. As soon as he found out about that, he decided that he had to have you. And since you don't officially exist, he doesn't have to worry about backlash. The only question is how he found out in the first place."

"If I remember right then his spy network is pretty extensive, he probably found out when the seals on the black scroll were being altered to accept your blood and he swiped it for a few hours, it was the perfect opportunity to learn a few things he wasn't supposed to." Aiko said thoughtfully, "but never mind how he found out, now the question is: what is he going to do about it?"

Aiko looked thoughtful for a moment before answering her own question. "He probably had one of his agents placed at the entry point to monitor all comings and goings so we have to assume he knows you're here. Which means as soon as he finds out he'll probably order his men to begin the takeover, whether they're ready or not. When he's being flashy about his strength he really likes to go all out so he'll probably bring in all of his root forces. So give the message three days to arrive and a further five days for him to get here if he pushes his troops (which he will). That gives us a tentative preparation period of eight days. What are we going to do?"

Itachi stood up. "We came prepared, everyone we could sneak past danzo's people are already in the other room. We have a capture/interrogation team with a resident tactician, a heavy combat team with the capacity to surpass the sannin, and four jonin. We can't get any more troops without tipping our hand to Danzo and possibly losing any advantage we could possibly gain."

Aiko sighed, "Alright i'll use them. Lets bring them in and get everyone on the same page."

As Itachi turned to retrieve the teams Aiko made one last parting shot. "These genin better be as good as you say, otherwise we're up a creek without a paddle, heck the way things are set up we don't even have a boat!"

Itachi just kept walking on his way out. "Don't worry, they are." He said as he left.

Oooooooooooooooooooooo

Itachi found all six genin at the only ramen stand in the village, he appeared right behind them and announced himself. The genin of team ten jumped six feet in the air while team eight simply turned around calmly. "Nezumi noticed your scent a block away, and we noticed you not long after that." Hinata said in explanation.

"Fine, but you six are wanted in the tower, it's time to end the charades and get down to work." Itachi said before disappearing in a flash of lightning.

"Showoff!" Naruto muttered before following in the direction his Sensei had gone.

ooooooooooo

"Alright, what's this about charades ending and reasons we're here?" Ino asked loudly as soon as she entered the Shiokage's office.

"Isn't Naruto supposed the loud and obnoxious one Ino? This whole thing is just so troublesome I can't even begin to describe it." Shikamaru said.

Aiko sighed. "Sadly Shikamaru is correct. This situation is incredibly troublesome, and if it isn't handled right then it could spell doom for both shiogakure and konoha. Here's what we know so far..."

she explained the entire situation, classification be damned. By the end of it all team ten knew everything, the true purpose and identity of shiogakure, danzo's manipulations in konoha, and his attempts at staging a takeover of shiogakure. To say they were astonished would be an understatement.

They were horrified, to think that one man could do all of the things Danzo had done or was suspected of doing and not get caught, it would have been extremely impressive if it weren't so frightening. The man who had done those things was coming for Shiogakure, and they were the only thing really standing in the way. Well, them and an army of shinobi made up of genin, academy students and the founding ninja of the village, along with whatever remnants were leftover from the Mist bloodline purges. Not a bad force all things considered. Shikamaru could see some possibilities for their situation.

"Alright," he said, "Here's what I think we should do..."

**Sooo, I hope you liked my further in depth look at Shiogakure. My favorite part is of course it's location. (Physics? I don't need no stinkin Physics!) the rest was just a result of me having too much time on my hands and wanting the whole thing to actually be at least semi-plausible in the Naruto world.**

**- I need ideas for some bloodlines to give some characters from Shiogakure. I have a few ideas, but not nearly enough to fill out an entire village of bloodlines rescued from kirigakure. As far as i know, They were supposed to be one of the most bloodline intensive villages before the bloodline purge. And from the way they talk about them there were more then just a few present when it happened so the floor is open. No idea yet as to how many the village actually rescued so i don't know how many i'll actually use. **

** But if you can think of any from canon or just have something you'd like to see turned into a bloodline let me know, I'll give credit where credit's due, just like with the ideas for the summoning contracts. If you can think of a name to go along with the bloodline that would help out alot.**

**Just so you know, there is a rather large possibility of the bloodlines and the characters wielding them appearing further on down the road as side characters, I already have tentative plans to send mentoli and his team to the chunin exams when they come around.**

**a short characterization is now posted on my profile for mentoli and his team. mostly it's just Mentoli since i didn't want to spoil the surprise on his teammates names (fine, i haven't thought of them yet! happy now?) I wrote this chapter while i was on vacation in an area with a distinct lack of internet, and i like my character names to at least have some meaning. i just hope that Mentoli's name doesn't end up meaning something bad. i didn't check his, i just thought it sounded cool.**


	17. the approaching tide of war

Danzo Daisheki, known to many as dastardly dee-dee, smiled grimly as he looked on at Shiogakure. The fools obviously had no idea what was about to happen to them, such a disappointment. It was almost as if they wanted to give him the village for free! He expected better from these people. He had been going under the assumption that this would be a hard thing to do. He suddenly saw many plumes of smoke begin rising from parts of the village, accompanied by explosions and mass chaos. He grinned evilly and ordered his forces to attack. Today was indeed a good day to gain his own private hidden village, for the good of Konoha of course.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

**One week earlier**

"We need a way to pull off an ambush without letting them into the village itself, that's too dangerous. One high powered jutsu going astray and hitting the dome could doom us all."

Shikamaru stood up and moved to the map of the area surrounding the hidden tide village.

"The only problem is that in order to stop this invasion with minimum casualties to our side we'll have to do just that. Letting him think he's won without much of a fight before springing the trap shut on him and his men." He pulled a chair over and sat back down in his 'thinking pose' while still staring at the map. "what do you want us to do, bring in another village and stick it in the valley for him to take over instead?" Naruto asked jokingly, only to receive a slap on the back of his head from Ino. "Ow! I was just trying to lighten the mood Ino. You didn't have to hit me!"

"As troublesome as it is, he's right Ino. It's the only way. But I doubt it'll work for very long so we'll have to rig the decoy to explode and have fighters standing by to mop up the rest of them." Shikamaru said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean Shikamaru? Naruto's never right about anything!" Ino said indignantly

"I mean exactly what I said: Naruto's right, we need to find some way to trick Danzo without him finding out until it's too late. And the easiest way to do that will be to have another village stand in our place. Though I doubt we can bring it in from outside, we'll probably have to build it ourselves...such a troublesome plan, but with a little tweaking it should work." Shikamaru explained.

The Shiokage, who had remained silent until now, spoke up. "It's a good plan, our only problem will be pulling it off within the estimated time limit." She said, then she began to muse quietly to herself, "Yes it just might be possible, I'll have to reassign a few people, and put off a few village improvements, but I think we can do it." She stood up, "Good job Shikamaru-san, we'll begin preparations immediately and start constructing the decoy using the original village layout as a template- that's probably the layout obtained by Danzo's spies since it's easier to get to, so that's the one we'll use for the decoy. All of of you should start training as if you are about to enter a war, though I doubt you will enter combat this time you can never be too careful, or too prepared." She turned to Mentoli's Jonin-sensei. "Subarashii, work with the Konoha Genin to familiarize them with the old village layout and any tactics you think they'll need to know if they are called on to fight. I'll be reassigning twin G to the building teams for the duration of this crisis, his earth control jutsus will come in handy. Dismissed!" she said with an air of finality.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

"So exactly what are we supposed to train in?" Naruto asked Subarashii when they arrived at one of the weapons training grounds inside one of the smaller domes that made up the outer village. For a supposedly minor village it certainly was extensive.

"We only have a week and ninjutsu won't help much anyways since we'll most likely be left behind to guard the real village entrance. So we'll just have to train with weapons, I doubt any of you have seen anything similar to Mentoli's weapon style in Konoha, and Twin B's is as rare as your own Naruto." Subarashii Yūjin said

"It will be good practice for you six to fight against a style unfamiliar to your village."

"What's so different about Mentoli's weapon style?" Naruto asked, genuinely interested.

Instead of answering Subarashii merely motioned to Mentoli, who produced a three foot long wooden cylinder from his jacket.

"My entire style is centered around this." The boy said.

"And? What's so different about that? Pretty much all you can do is beat people over the head with something like that." Naruto said, genuinely confused, not something he ever enjoyed feeling if he could help it.

"An attitude like that is precisely the reason why my fighting style is so effective." Mentoli said, "Nobody expects this piece of wood to do anything, and they would be right, if they don't know what to do with it." He held the cylinder in front of him horizontally, and Naruto's Byakuzen, which had become second nature after so many years of use, told him that he was channeling chakra into it.

The reason why became apparent a fraction of a second later when a straight double edged blade sprang out of both ends of the dully glowing cylinder.

"Does it seem harmless now?" Mentoli asked in amusement, "I created this weapon and fighting style myself, and it just so happens that I am the only one who can use it to any level of skill, for obvious reasons." He paused, looking thoughtful. "You could say that I'm a bit of a genius when it comes to creating and wielding weapons."

Most of the present Konoha genin were suitably impressed by his little show.

But not Naruto, he simply drew his tiger hook swords and got into his basic fighting stance.

"I'll admit that it looks impressive, but intimidation is only half the battle. It means nothing without the skill to back it up. So I just have one question: How well can you really fight with it?"

Then without warning Naruto attacked the self proclaimed weapons genius. Not to be out done Mentoli charged in a split second later. The other genin jumped to the safety of the sidelines just as the two met in a clash of swords, Naruto's twin swords stopped short by Mentoli's double staff blades. They disengaged, jumping away to land 20 feet apart.

"Good reaction time," Naruto said Jovially, "And here I was afraid that this wouldn't be any fun."

"There's more to me than meets the eye," Mentoli replied, "the real question is: Can you keep up when I actually try?"

He disappeared in a blur only to be stopped by Naruto's swords again, this time he attempted to disarm Mentoli by hooking the blades and pulling, but his opponent was one step ahead of him. He retracted his blades for a split second, freeing his weapon and throwing Naruto off balance.

The spar continued in this fashion for twenty minute, neither one gaining any significant advantage to take advantage of. After a suitable length of time had passed and the observer Subarashii had detected was gone, he stopped the spar.

"I think think that was convincing enough to any observers." he said jovially.

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked, "aren't we supposed to be training for the invasion?"

"As exciting as a full week of nonstop training sounds, I doubt your skills will improve enough to help."

Seeing Naruto open his mouth to protest, Subarashii continued quickly, "if we really want to help stop the invasion then what we need to do is create a fallback plan."

"But why?" Ino asked in confusion, "Shikamaru already came up with a foolproof plan to stop it!"

"Because, foolish genin, we may have caught most of Danzo's spies, but we have to assume that there is at least one we missed, the only question is whether or not he will be able to access to the defense plans we've made and send them to Danzo. In order to be sure that our village will survive this invasion we need to have a fallback plan in place to counter the failure of our main plan. Because we need almost all of our forces to create the decoy village we are forced to rely on you to create the fallback plan that I will give to the Shiokage for final approval."

Naruto looked thoughtful (which was almost never a good sign), "why don't we just use Shikamaru's plan?" seeing the others about to yell at him for being an idiot he quickly explained, "i mean, they might expect one fake, but will they expect two? We'll just make more tunnels these ones heading out to sea add a few caverns with enough camping supplies to look lived in with hints of another few secret doors to convince them that they found the entrance to the real village and they'll probably call in reinforcements to help 'pacify' the village. We'll make the tunnels big enough to hold most of them, and after a large enough number of them have gone in we just collapse the tunnels behind them trapping them inside. But there's one problem, we need him to think that the first fake is the real one without losing very many shinobi in order to defend the real town if the second fake doesn't convince them, besides there's no point in losing any ninja at all if we don't have to. I can spam 500 shadow clones without feeling tired, let's use them."

Shino chipped in his support, "My ant summons can dig the tunnels and caverns needed without drawing workers away from the primary plan. I will need a chakra battery to summon enough of them though."

"My rats can set up the evidence of human habitation in the final cavern quite easily, with the help of a chakra battery of course." Hinata volunteered.

Subarashii looked impressed, "I know I asked you guys to come up with another plan, but I never expected you guys to actually think of one that would work! As soon as the Shiokage approves this plan we'll start, and then we'll get to some actual training."


End file.
